Building a reddit bot

I build this following this tutorial.

Learning | Making my own

Learning

1. Fetch reddit post
2. Reply to reddit post
3. Automate reply

Fetch post from reddit

Creating reddit app

Go to this page and click on the create your own app button:

and create a reddit app. From there you will get a client_id(red square) and a secret(blue square).

And then you should to the praw.ini in the package folder of the praw and added a new section for your bot, and put the client_id and secret, along with a user_agent field specifiying the version.

featch code

import praw  
  
reddit = praw.Reddit('bot1')  
subreddit = reddit.subreddit("learnpython")  
for submission in subreddit.hot(limit=5):  
    print("Title: ", submission.title)  
    print("Text: ", submission.selftext)  
    print("Score: ", submission.score)  
    print("---------------------------------\n")

Reply

import praw  
import pdb  
import re  
import os  
  
# Create the Reddit instance  
  
reddit = praw.Reddit(  
    client_id="id",  
    client_secret="sercret",  
    password="password",  
    username="username",  
    user_agent="Py_gloomy_repli_bot 0.2"  
)  
  
  
if not os.path.isfile("posts_replied_to.txt"):  
    posts_replied_to = []  
else:  
    with open("posts_replied_to.txt", "r") as f:  
        # Read the file into a list and remove any empty values  
        posts_replied_to = f.read()  
        posts_replied_to = posts_replied_to.split("\n")  
        posts_replied_to = list(filter(None, posts_replied_to))  
  
        # Get the top 5 values from the subreddit pythonforengineers  
        subreddit = reddit.subreddit('pythonforengineers')  
        for submission in subreddit.hot(limit=20):  
            if submission.id not in posts_replied_to:  
                if re.search("i love python", submission.title, re.IGNORECASE):  
                    submission.reply("me bot says: I love Python too! I especially love praw")  
                    print("Bot replying to : ", submission.title)  
                    posts_replied_to.append(submission.id)  
                elif re.search('python', submission.selftext, re.IGNORECASE):  
                    submission.reply("you mentioned python, python very good!")  
                    print("Bot replying to : ", submission.title)  
                    posts_replied_to.append(submission.id)  
                else:  
                    print("Nothing found")  
  
        # Write our updated list back to the file  
        with open("posts_replied_to.txt", "w") as f:  
            for post_id in posts_replied_to:  
                f.write(post_id + "\n")

Automate

To automate this script, we have to use linux chrontab

we first start a new cron job by typing:

crontab -e

and then we select which editor to use, I chose vim.

Then we put this line in the bottom of the cron job script:

* * * * * cd /path/to/project/; python3 bot_script.py

The 5 * represent the time the job gets executed:

* * * * * command to be executed 
– – – – – 
| | | | |
| | | | +—– day of week (0 – 6) (Sunday=0) 
| | | +——- month (1 – 12) 
| | +——— day of month (1 – 31) 
| +———– hour (0 – 23) +————- min (0 – 59)

Then save the script, and enter the command:

sudo service cron start

Comment reply

import praw  
import pdb  
import re  
import os  
import random  
  
# Create the Reddit instance  
  
reddit = praw.Reddit(  
    client_id="id",  
    client_secret="secret",  
    password="password",  
    username="username",  
    user_agent="useragent"  
)  
  
lucas_quotes = \  
[  
" I've calculated your chance of survival, but I don't think you'll like it. ",  
" Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust or just fall apart where I'm standing?",  
"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they tell me to take you up to the bridge. Call that job satisfaction? Cause I don't. ",  
"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. ",  
" It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level. ",  
" You think you've got problems. What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No, don't even bother answering. I'm 50,000 times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer.",  
"Zaphod Beeblebrox: There's a whole new life stretching out in front of you. Marvin: Oh, not another one.",  
"The first ten million years were the worst. And the second ten million... they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that, I went into a bit of a decline. ",  
"Sorry, did I say something wrong? Pardon me for breathing which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it oh God I'm so depressed. ",  
" I have a million ideas, but, they all point to certain death. ",  
]  
  
subreddit = reddit.subreddit('pythonforengineers')  
  
with open("comment_replied.txt", "r") as f:  
        # Read the file into a list and remove any empty values  
        comment_replied = f.read()  
        comment_replied = comment_replied.split("\n")  
        comment_replied = list(filter(None, comment_replied))  
  
for comment in subreddit.comments(limit=100):  
    if comment.id not in comment_replied:  
        if re.search("Lucas Help", comment.body, re.IGNORECASE):  
            lucas_reply = "Lucas the robot says: " + random.choice(lucas_quotes)  
            comment.reply(lucas_reply)  
            comment_replied.append(comment.id)  
        else:  
            print("Nothing found")  
  
# Write our updated list back to the file  
with open("comment_replied.txt", "w") as f:  
    for post_id in  comment_replied:  
        f.write(post_id + "\n")

Making my own

This is my attempt to make a helpful info bot for r/udub

import praw  
import pdb  
import re  
import os  
import random  
  
# Create the Reddit instance  
  
reddit = praw.Reddit(  
    client_id="client_id",  
    client_secret="secret",  
    password="password",  
    username="username",  
    user_agent="Py_gloomy_repli_bot 0.2"  
)  
  
helplink = '''  
General student service:\n  
- https://www.washington.edu/students/servicesforstudents/  
  
Courses/Professor info:\n  
- https://uwgrades.com/  
  
- https://www.washington.edu/cec/toc.html  
  
- https://www.google.com/search?q=rate+my+professor+uw+%5Binsert+professor+name%5D&sxsrf=AJOqlzVwUt9A0OY5_KgZb7bdeYc_lw_RKg%3A1675667778386&ei=QqngY5GbF_aE0PEP8t2piAo&ved=0ahUKEwiRxMT1rID9AhV2AjQIHfJuCqEQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=rate+my+professor+uw+%5Binsert+professor+name%5D&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQAzIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKABMgUIIRCrAjoICAAQogQQsAM6BAgjECc6BQgAEIAESgQIQRgBSgQIRhgAUNgGWJYaYLgkaAFwAHgAgAFQiAHVCpIBAjIymAEAoAEByAEFwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz-serp  
  
UW student housing info:\n  
- https://www.housingforhuskies.com/  
  
UW on-campus food info:\n  
- https://www.campusreel.org/colleges/university-of-washington-seattle-campus/dining_food/  
  
UW on-campus job info:\n  
- https://www.washington.edu/workstudy/find-a-job/  
'''  
  
if not os.path.isfile("posts_replied_to.txt"):  
    posts_replied_to = []  
else:  
    with open("posts_replied_to.txt", "r") as f:  
        # Read the file into a list and remove any empty values  
        posts_replied_to = f.read()  
        posts_replied_to = posts_replied_to.split("\n")  
        posts_replied_to = list(filter(None, posts_replied_to))  
  
        # Get the top 5 values from the subreddit pythonforengineers  
        subreddit = reddit.subreddit('udub')  
        for submission in subreddit.new(limit=50):  
            if submission.id not in posts_replied_to:  
                if re.search("\?", submission.title, re.IGNORECASE):  
                    submission.reply("Hi! I am a bot! Your post is asking a question, so here are some usefuly links if you haven't found them yet!\n" + helplink)  
                    print("Bot replying to : ", submission.title)  
                    posts_replied_to.append(submission.id)  
                else:  
                    print("Nothing found")  
  
        # Write our updated list back to the file  
        with open("posts_replied_to.txt", "w") as f:  
            for post_id in posts_replied_to:  
                f.write(post_id + "\n")