Python - Facebook Check For Duplicate Post Before Posting

Question

I'm working on a small python script to automate a daily post to a page my wife manages. It downloads a pic, merges with a header, and posts to the page with a URL and some text. My idea is ultimately to drop this on a Linux box I have and schedule it to fire once a day. If I do go to automate it, I'm wondering if there's a way to check and make sure the post hasn't already been done. The text is consistent (and unique as it has the date in it). Is there a way to have the script search the page for the text before posting? Searches so far haven't yielded much.

Answer 1

Based on the approach you are asking for, it doesn't appear to be possible to run a query of a user's posts and specific search text without being a Facebook Partner according to the discussion on this other post.

Suggestion:

If your automated script is a single instance and the only one making the posts, would a simple history that is updated and managed locally to your script suffice?

#Pseudo code

# Obviously, it would make sense to make this history data structure 
#   persistent across runs of your script
published_posts = set()

def publish_post(text: str):
  if text in published_posts:
    console.log("Post already previously published!")
    return
  resp = api.post(text)
  if resp.status != 200:
    console.log("Post unsuccessful!")
    raise Exception(resp.status)
  published_posts.add(text)