recurring events every specific amount of days

[jacksfrustration]

im making a reminder app not for profit and one of the features would ideally be recurring reminders. So i would have something like a checkbox and if it is on then a simpledialog window will open so the user can input how frequently he wants the reminder to be. I save everything to a CSV file and then i use a function to loop through the csv file and if the task date matches todays date then the software should either email or sms about the task to the assigned user. My problem is how do i add a list of dates that are apart as many days as the user states. Hopefully i could get something like initial reminder date and end date and then just include all of the dates that are the step size that the user declared. The way i see it is if i get a list of all of the days of the year and a step size to determine how frequently the reminder should be sent. So say the user chooses 7 days and the initial date is 01-08-2024 then the reminder should recurr on the 08-08-2024 and so on.
This is pretty much the best i can explain it. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[deanhystad]

What have you tried?

And why a CSV file? By being tabular, CSV files are restrictive and require extra work to read and write. I would use a json file. It is a much better format for storing anything that isn't a table. loading a json file can return your data in a way that you can work with directly. No need to convert datetime strings back to datetime objects, or strings to ints or floats.

[rodiongork]

My problem is how do i add a list of dates that are apart as many days as the user states.

You probably don't need this. You should only keep next alarm day and iteration period. After alarm fires you shift the date to future again.

(it may be a bit more complicated, but that's the main idea. you don't need more than one date at once anyway)

[jacksfrustration]

What have you tried?

And why a CSV file? By being tabular, CSV files are restrictive and require extra work to read and write. I would use a json file. It is a much better format for storing anything that isn't a table. loading a json file can return your data in a way that you can work with directly. No need to convert datetime strings back to datetime objects, or strings to ints or floats.

at first i was using a json file but i found a csv to be easier seeing as i can just read it using the pandas library and then convert it to a list of dictionaries for easy access. so the way i could see this working is making a list of due dates in the due date column and then just loop through each entry in the list whilst also accessing the list under the column values. for istance i could use a for loop along with the enumerate function and then maybe slice the list with a start date end date and step size. So i guess all i need to know is how do i make a list of future dates up to 2 years and have that very list being updated every time the software boots so the values of the list will only include future dates. i found the timedelta function however i want the format of the dates to be DD-MM-YYYY instead of the default YYYY-MM-DD



edit: i have now managed to make a list of dates in the format that i wanted. My problem is now how to append to the list in the csv file. i managed to create lists for each value and appended the value to each list. i have also created a checkbutton to choose the date to recurr. the problem is the way im verifying the dates (i use a function that makes sure the inputted dates are only set in the future and are in a DD-MM-YYYY format) so the abovementioned function only returns a string as the dates. this means that i cant use the timedelta function like i did in my other project. finally another problem i have is how do i get values of dates that recurr more than once seeing as timedelta only generates a date that is a certain amount of days ahead of the start date which means it doesnt give you the right to make sure the event recurrs as many times as the user wants it to

[deanhystad]

 i want the format of the dates to be DD-MM-YYYY instead of the default YYYY-MM-DD

Why put dates in a format that is not sortable or comparable. Save and work with datettime in the default (best) format to minimize the amount of work required to work with dates and present datetime in whatever format you want, but that format should be the default localized format, not a hardcoded format.

Output:
i found a csv to be easier seeing as i can just read it using the pandas library and then convert it to a list of dictionaries for easy access.

Using CSV you wouldn't need to install pandas or do any conversion at all to get a list of dictionaries. You also wouldn't have to convert the data from a list of dictionaries to a dataframe to write the data. Using a CSV file reading your file into the list of dictionaries is a single line. Writing is also a single line. I think you just don't like the idea of json.

[jacksfrustration]

 i want the format of the dates to be DD-MM-YYYY instead of the default YYYY-MM-DD

Why put dates in a format that is not sortable or comparable. Save and work with datettime in the default (best) format to minimize the amount of work required to work with dates and present datetime in whatever format you want, but that format should be the default localized format, not a hardcoded format.

Output:
i found a csv to be easier seeing as i can just read it using the pandas library and then convert it to a list of dictionaries for easy access.

Using CSV you wouldn't need to install pandas or do any conversion at all to get a list of dictionaries. You also wouldn't have to convert the data from a list of dictionaries to a dataframe to write the data. Using a CSV file reading your file into the list of dictionaries is a single line. Writing is also a single line. I think you just don't like the idea of json.

i edited my above post. if you have the time and want to help me please review the edited text and respond to it at your own pace... thanks once again

[deanhystad]

for entering dates I would use a calendar widget, not a text field.

I don't see why you cannot use timedelta. Dates should always appear as timedate objects inside your program, only as strings when saved in a file, or displayed to the user. Your verification function should return a datetime object, not a string.