Uploading a picture to Twitter over a period of time

Question

I wrote a script that will eventually go onto a Raspberry Pi. It takes a picture then uploads it to Twitter every 15 minutes from 5:30-9:00pm.

It works fine as is, but I feel I need to organize this as a class. I was wondering if someone could point me in the right direction on how to take my functions and make it into a class.

Just to be clear, I have basic knowledge on how classes work. I'm just confused about how I could get all of my functions to work within a class.

#Take care of imports
import pyimgur
import json
import requests
from requests_oauthlib import OAuth1
from twython import Twython
from apscheduler.scheduler import Scheduler
import logging
logging.basicConfig()

#Imgur credentials
CLIENT_ID = "----"

#Twitter credentials
consumer_key = '----'
consumer_secret = '----'
access_token = '-----'
access_token_secret = '----'
user_id = "----"


################################
##### FUNCTIONS ################
################################


#Optional: Upload an image to imgur and grab the link to tweet it. Bypassing twitpic
def upload_to_imgur():      
    #path to image
    path = "/pathtopicture" 

    #upload to imgur
    im = pyimgur.Imgur(CLIENT_ID)
    uploaded_image = im.upload_image(PATH, title="Uploaded with PyImgur")

    #print various test things
    #print(uploaded_image.title)
    #print(uploaded_image.datetime)
    #print(uploaded_image.link)
    imgur_link = uploaded_image.link


#Upload a tweet or a media tweet to twitter
def upload_to_twitter():    
    # #upload simple tweet
    twitter = Twython(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret)
    twitter.update_status(status="tweet text goes here")
    #
    # OR upload a media tweet
    #
    # photo = open('/pathtopicture', 'rb')
    # twitter.update_status_with_media(status='tweetText', media=photo)
    #
    # OR upload to imgur then tweet link
    #
    # upload_to_imgur()
    # twitter.update_status(status=imgur_link)
    #

#Destroy a tweet from twitter
def destroy_tweet():    
    #URL for the destroy request
    destroy_url = 'https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json?user_id=---&count=1'

    #authentication
    auth = OAuth1(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret)

    #Request twitter for JSON response
    r =requests.get(destroy_url, auth=auth)

    #Grab most recent tweet ID from JSON response
    tweet_id=r.json()[0]['id_str']

    #Set what twitter means
    twitter = Twython(consumer_key, consumer_secret, access_token, access_token_secret)

    #Destroy the latest tweet
    twitter.destroy_status(id=tweet_id)


#Every 15 minutes from 5:30-9:00pm tweet a picture and upload to twitter.
def start_scheduler():
    #initialize
    sched = Scheduler()

    #All fo the schedulers
    #Scheduler at 5:30
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=17, minute=30)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 5:45
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=17, minute=45)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 6:00
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=18)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 6:15
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=18, minute=15)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 6:30
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=18, minute=30)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 6:45
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=18, minute=45)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 7:00
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=19)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 7:15
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=19, minute=15)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 7:30
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=19, minute=30)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 7:45
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=19, minute=45)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 8:00
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=20)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 8:15
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=20, minute=15)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 8:30
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=20, minute=30)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 8:45
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=20, minute=45)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()

    #Scheduler at 9:00
    @sched.cron_schedule(day_of_week='mon-sat', hour=21)
    def scheduled_job():
        destroy_tweet()
        upload_to_twitter()


    #start scheduler
    sched.start()
    #loop
    while True:
        pass


#Start the script
start_scheduler()

Answer 1

Repeating the scheduled jobs is not necessary. A sufficiently complex cron-style expression should do:

@sched.cron_schedule(hour='17-20', minute='0-45/15')
def scheduled_job():
    destroy_tweet()
    upload_to_twitter()

The downside of this is that it, unlike your original code, will not be triggered at 9:00.

Even if that's not acceptable, your original code need not repeat itself so much. After defining scheduled_job without the sched.cron_schedule decorator, you can still schedule that as a job within a for loop, which would be much cleaner, e.g.:

for hour in range(17, 21):
    for minute in [0, 15, 30, 45]:
        sched.add_cron_job(scheduled_job, hour=hour, minute=minute)

This would also allow for adding the special 9:00 case.

Answer 2

I think that defining a function inside of a function definition body is bad practice. For example you can have a class called Scheduler and define each function inside that class.

I will leave the rest for the more expirienced people.