Birthday Reminder Application in Python

This app helps in reminding birthdays and notifying your friend’s birthdays. This app uses Python and Ubuntu notifications to notify users on every startup of the system.

# Python program For
# Birthday Reminder Application

# time module is must as reminder
# is set with the help of dates
import time

# os module is used to notify user
# using default "Ubuntu" notification bar
import os

# Birthday file is the one in which the actual birthdays
# and dates are present. This file can be
# manually edited or can be automated.
# For simplicity, we will edit it manually.
# Birthdays should be written in this file in
# the format: "MonthDay Name Surname" (Without Quotes)

birthdayFile = '/path/to/birthday/file'

def checkTodaysBirthdays():
    fileName = open(birthdayFile, 'r')
    today = time.strftime('%m%d')
    flag = 0
    for line in fileName:
        if today in line:
            line = line.split(' ')
            flag =1
            # line[1] contains Name and line[2] contains Surname
            os.system('notify-send "Birthdays Today: ' + line[1]
            + ' ' + line[2] + '"')
    if flag == 0:
            os.system('notify-send "No Birthdays Today!"')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    checkTodaysBirthdays()

Adding the script to Startup

After writing the above code now it is the time to add this Python script to startup. This can be done in Ubuntu as follows:

1. Firstly, we have to create an executable file for our reminder.py script
2. This can be done by typing the following command in the terminal

   sudo chmod +x reminder.py, where reminder.py is our script file name 

3. Now we have to transfer this file to the path where Linux searches for its default files:
   Type this command in terminal:

    sudo cp /path/to/our/reminder.py /usr/bin

   . This will add our executable script to /usr/bin.

4. In global search, search for Startup Applications
5. Click on Add and Give a desired Name for your process
6. Type in the command. For example, our file name is reminder.py then type reminder.py in the command field and Select Add

NOTE: The script runs automatically(once added to startup) everytime you start your system. Also, If you have more than two birthdays on the same day, both the birthdays will be notified in the notification.

How the birthday file should look like

Output after running the script

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