Execute Python Script Every Hour on MacOS

Question

Goal

I have a script written in python.

1. connect to database
2. insert some fake data

My goal is execute that script every hour.

---

database.py

#!/usr/bin/python


import MySQLdb
import random
import requests
import time


db = MySQLdb.connect(host="localhost",    # your host, usually localhost
                     user="root",         # your username
                     passwd="*********",  # your password
                     db="db-local")       # name of the data base

# you must create a Cursor object. It will let
#  you execute all the queries you need
cur = db.cursor()

# The first line is defined for specified vendor
mac = [ 0x00, 0x24, 0x81,
    random.randint(0x00, 0x7f),
    random.randint(0x00, 0xff),
    random.randint(0x00, 0xff) ]

device_mac =  ':'.join(map(lambda x: "%02x" % x, mac))
cpe_mac = '000D6766F2F6'

url = "https://randomuser.me/api/"
data = requests.get(url).json()
firstname = data['results'][0]['user']['name']['first']
lastname = data['results'][0]['user']['name']['last']
email = data['results'][0]['user']['email']
gender = data['results'][0]['user']['gender']

age_range_options = [">15", "15-25", "25-40","40+"]
age_range = random.choice(age_range_options)

ip = '10.10.10.10'
host_name = 'cron.job'
visit_count = 1
created_at = time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')
updated_at = time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')

sql = ('''INSERT INTO visitors (device_mac,cpe_mac,firstname, lastname, email, gender, age_range,ip,host_name,visit_count,created_at, updated_at) VALUES(%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s,%s)''')

args = (device_mac,cpe_mac, firstname, lastname, email, gender, age_range,ip, host_name,visit_count, created_at, updated_at)
cur.execute(sql,args)
db.commit()


# for record in records:
# print records

db.close()

---

CronniX

I did some researches, and people suggested a bunch of apps to do that.

So I've tried downloaded/installed CronniX

create a task > set the schedule > and run it.

It kept hanging on executing ...

---

Task Till Dawn

In addition to that, I've also tried Task Till Dawn, and again

create a task > set the schedule > and run it.

Result

Nothing seem to insert to my database, even it said 35 succesfully executions. All it did was pop up my database.py inside Xcode window.

---

Terminal

I run python database.py, It works perfectly fine, and data get inserted.

---

I was thinking that, it was the permission issue, but I already did

sudo chmod a+x database.py

---

What did I miss ? What's the better way to achieve this ?

Any suggestions / hints will be much appreciated !

Answer 1

You can also just use crontab:

Every hour:

crontab 0 * * * * /path/to/script

Every minute:

crontab * * * * * /path/to/script

To see your crontabs:

crontab -l

To see further options:

man crontab

Answer 2

You can use crontab and I think it is already installed on OSX?

Open a Terminal and run crontab -e. This should open an Editor. There you can type

@hourly /usr/bin/python database.py