RememberTheMilk - iCal duration/time-estimate parser

icalParseRTM.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
"""Small script for parsing the time estate to a correctly displayed enddate in ICS format. 
Please do 'pip install ics' before using."""

# Python 2 and 3 switch for importing urllib
try:
    from urllib.request import urlopen
except ImportError:
    from urllib2 import urlopen

# Python 2 and 3 switch for setting UTF8 as default string encoding
try:
    import sys  
    reload(sys)  
    sys.setdefaultencoding('utf8')
except (AttributeError, NameError):
    pass
    
from ics import Calendar, Event
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import dateutil.parser

url = "INSERT URL HERE"
cal = Calendar(urlopen(url).read().decode('utf-8'))

newCal = Calendar()

i = 0

while i < len(cal.events):
    checkBegin = dateutil.parser.parse(str(cal.events[i].begin))
    
    # check for presence of time estimate and full date (including hours)
    if 'Time estimate' in (cal.events[i].description) and checkBegin.hour != 0:

        # get the time estimate 
        s = cal.events[i].description
        
        # estimates can be in minutes or hours
        hourStart = s.find('Time estimate: PT') + 17
        hourEnd = s.find('H', hourStart)
        hourDuration = (s[hourStart:hourEnd])
        
        minuteStart = s.find('Time estimate: PT') + 17
        minuteEnd = s.find('M', minuteStart)
        minuteDuration = (s[minuteStart:minuteEnd])
        
        e = Event()
        e.name = cal.events[i].name
        e.location = cal.events[i].location
        e.uid = cal.events[i].uid
        e.created = cal.events[i].created
        e.description = cal.events[i].description
        
        endTime = dateutil.parser.parse(str(cal.events[i].begin))
        
        # switch for minutes and hours; if it's minutes, hourDuration will
        # contain the whole description string from the event 
        if len(hourDuration) > 2:
            endTime += timedelta(minutes=int(minuteDuration))
        else:
            endTime += timedelta(hours=int(hourDuration))
        e.begin = cal.events[i].begin
        e.end = endTime
        newCal.events.append(e)
        
    else:
        e = Event()
        e.name = cal.events[i].name
        e.location = cal.events[i].location
        e.uid = cal.events[i].uid
        e.created = cal.events[i].created
        e.description = cal.events[i].description
        e.begin = cal.events[i].begin
        
        newCal.events.append(e)
        
    i += 1  
    
with open('rtm_parsed.ics', 'w') as f:
    f.writelines(newCal)    

icalParseRTM_README.md

RememberTheMilk - iCal duration/time-estimate parser

This small script will get your secret iCal events from a URL and parse it in a way that an enddate is added. iCal compatible programs should display the correct length of an event. You will need a (virtual) server with cron jobs.

Install / Use

1. pip install ics
2. replace 'INSERT URL HERE' with your secret iCal URL
3. set up cronjob, e.g. */15 * * * * python3.5 icalParseRTM.py
4. the output file rtm_parsed.ics will be written
5. point your iCal software to your ics file

Tested in Thunderbird 45.4.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 with Python 3.5; requires at least Python 2.7