bdrem - Birthday reminder by mail

Birthday reminder that sends out e-mails.

It can also generate ASCII tables on your console, iCalendar files and normal HTML pages.

Features

Data sources

• Any SQL database.
  • Multiple date fields per record supported.
• An LDAP server with evolutionPerson records
• Birthday reminder files (.bdf)
• CSV files
• A directory of .vcf vCard files

Output formats

• ASCII table
• HTML
• Email (text + HTML parts)
• iCalendar

Usage

Command line

After configuration, you can test and use bdrem via command line:

$ bdrem
-----------------------------------------------------------
Days  Age  Name                  Event      Date        Day
-----------------------------------------------------------
   0   32  Foo Bar               Birthday   20.03.1982  Do
   1   33  Andrea Milestone      Birthday   21.03.1981  Fr
   7   32  Hugh Success          Birthday   27.03.1982  Do
  12       Welt                  Scherztag  01.04.????  Di

Help

To find out about all supported command line options, use --help:

Usage:
  ./bin/bdrem.php [options]
  ./bin/bdrem.php [options] <command> [options]

Options:
  -n NUM, --next=NUM                Show NUM days after date
  -p NUM, --prev=NUM                Show NUM days before date
  -r renderer, --renderer=renderer  Output mode
  --list-renderer                   lists valid choices for option renderer
  -e, --stoponempty                 Output nothing when list is empty
  -d date, --date=date              Date to show events for
  -c FILE, --config=FILE            Path to configuration file
  --debug                           Development helper (mail)
  --no-color                        Do not output ANSI color codes
  -h, --help                        show this help message and exit
  -v, --version                     show the program version and exit

Commands:
  readme  Show README.rst file
  config  Extract configuration file

E-Mail

To send birthday reminder e-mails, use the mail renderer:

$ bdrem --renderer=mail

If you only want an email if there is a birthday, use --stoponempty:

$ bdrem --renderer=mail --stoponempty

Make sure your config file contains $mail_from and $mail_to settings.

iCalendar

Exporting birthday events into an .ics file is easy:

$ bdrem --renderer=ical > birthdays.ics

It is possible to access the calendar via HTTP, too:

http://example.org/bdrem/?renderer=ical

You can subscribe to it in your calendar or email application. Integration has been tested with Thunderbird's Lightning and Claws Mail's vCalendar plugin.

HTML page

Simply point your web browser to the .phar file, or index.php. You will get a colorful HTML table:

Configuration

Copy data/bdrem.config.php.dist to data/bdrem.config.php and adjust it to your liking.

When running the .phar, extract the configuration file first:

$ php dist/bdrem-0.1.0.phar config > bdrem-0.1.0.phar.config.php

Birthday file

If you have a .bdf file from birthday reminder or birthday reminder 3, you can use it with bdrem.

Configure your source as follows:

$source = array('Bdf', '/path/to/birthday.bdf');

CSV file

Comma separated value files can be used with bdrem. They should at least contain a column with the name, and one with the date.

Simple configuration if you use the default settings:

$source = array(
    'Csv',
    '/path/to/file.csv'
);

Complex configuration:

$source = array(
    'Csv',
    array(
        'filename' => '/path/to/file.csv',
        'columns' => array(
            'name'  => 0,
            'event' => 1,
            'date'  => 2
        ),
        'firstLineIsHeader' => true,
        'defaultEvent' => 'Birthday',
        'separator' => ',',
    )
);

Configuration options

columns

Determines the position of the name, event and date columns. 0 is the first column. You can use false to disable a column; helpful if there is no event column.

Default:

array('name' => 0, 'event' => 1, 'date' => 2)

defaultEvent

Text to use as event if there is no event column.

Defaults to Birthday

firstLineIsHeader

If the first line in the CSV is column header data

Defaults to true

separator

How columns are separated.

Defaults to ,

LDAP server

bdrem can read birthdays and other events from persons in an LDAP server. It is known to work fine with evolutionPerson objects. Attributes birthDate and anniversary are read.

Configure it as follows:

$source = array(
    'Ldap',
    array(
        'host'   => 'ldap.example.org',
        'basedn' => 'ou=adressbuch,dc=example,dc=org',
        'binddn' => 'cn=FIXME,ou=users,dc=example,dc=org',
        'bindpw' => 'FIXME'
    )
);

SQL database

Events can be fetched from any SQL database supported by PHP's PDO extension - MySQL, SQLite, PostgreSQL and so on.

You may configure every little detail of your database:

$source = array(
    'Sql',
    array(
        'dsn' => 'mysql:dbname=bdrem;host=127.0.0.1',
        'user' => 'FIXME',
        'password' => 'FIXME',
        'table' => 'contacts',
        'fields' => array(
            'date' => array(
                //column name => event title
                'c_birthday' => 'Birthday'
            ),
            //column with name, or array with column names
            'name' => array('c_name'),
            //sprintf-compatible name formatting instruction
            'nameFormat' => '%s',
        )
    )
);

MS SQL server

Configure the date format in /etc/freetds/locales.conf:

[default]
    date format = %Y-%m-%d

Also set the charset to UTF-8 in /etc/freetds/freetds.conf:

[global]
    # TDS protocol version
    tds version = 8.0
    client charset = UTF-8

Restart Apache afterwards.

Use dblib in the DSN:

dblib:host=192.168.1.1;dbname=Databasename

Dependencies

• PHP 5.3 or higher
• PDO
• PEAR packages:
  • Console_Color2
  • Console_CommandLine
  • Console_Table
  • Mail_mime
  • Net_LDAP2

Note that the .phar file already includes all dependencies; you do not need to install anything.

When running from a git checkout, install the dependencies with composer:

$ composer install

License

bdrem is licensed under the AGPL v3 or later.

Homepage

Web site

http://cweiske.de/bdrem.htm

Source code

http://git.cweiske.de/bdrem.git

Mirror: https://github.com/cweiske/bdrem

Author

Written by Christian Weiske, cweiske@cweiske.de