Trinidad Scheduler Extension

Trinidad Scheduler uses Quartz to schedule processes for execution. It can be run as a server extension to Trinidad and/or a Web Application extension for Trinidad. If run as a Server extension all schedulers will get the server configuration options each option that is defined at the Web Application level will override the Server option.

Trinidad Scheduler creates a unique scheduler for each web application.

Most processes we schedule are scheduled using the Cron Trigger and run_later

Install Gem

gem install trinidad_scheduler_extension

Configure Trinidad

In either the Server extensions block or the Web Application extentions block add "scheduler"

extensions:
  scheduler:

Example Usage

It is valid to use the top level scheduling methods and run_later together

class ScheduledLog < TrinidadScheduler.Cron "0/5 * * * * ?"
  def run
    _logger.info "Executed every 5 seconds"

    TrinidadScheduler.run_later do 
      _logger.info "Executed after a 3 second delay"
    end
  end
end

Laziness

Trinidad Scheduler is very lazy. Schedulers will only be instantiated when they are needed to execute a job or to setup a schedule for execution. This laziness extends to even runtime definition of classes and use of run_later in conditional statements. When a run_later block is encountered or a class is defined at runtime that inherits from a TrinidadScheduler base method the scheduler will be created and started (if it does not exist)

If schedules are defined during application initialization then the scheduler will not be started until after the application is started by Tomcat.

(The lazy nature of TrinidadScheduler also gives the user time to define a logger outstide of the default configured log4j StdOut logger that is included with TrinidadScheduler)

Usage

The extension defines several methods that return classes based on the configuration options provided. These methods map to the scheduler trigger type that Quartz provides. The implemented triggers are CronTrigger, SimpleTrigger, and DateIntervalTrigger.

Cron Trigger

To define a process to be run based on a cron expression

class ScheduledClass < TrinidadScheduler.Cron "0/5 * * * * ?"
  def run
    _logger.info "I am printed every 5 seconds"
  end
end

The method TrinidadScheduler.Cron takes a cron expression as it's only argument and returns a class. This anonymous class is the parent of ScheduledClass and does the work to wrap ScheduledClass for use as a CronTrigger in Quartz.

The instance method "run" must be defined because it is called when the scheduled process is triggered. _logger is an instance variable available in ScheduledClass which gives the class access to the Quartz logger that is configured.

Simple Trigger

Schedule an INFO log message every 5 seconds starting now, setting the end is not necessary in this context, but is done

class TestJob < TrinidadScheduler.Simple :start => Time.now, :end => Time.now + 240, :repeat 3, :interval => 5000
  def run
    _logger.info "I am inside this block" #=> prints "I am inside this block" every 5 seconds
  end
end

The Simple Trigger will execute based on options passed to the method TrinidadScheduler.Simple, the options available are outlined above in the example, none of them are necessary if you only want to trigger the process once. You can define a start and end time as well as how many times to fire the trigger along with an interval to be observed between trigger execution.

DateInterval Trigger

Schedule an INFO log message every 5 seconds starting now and ending after 4 minutes

class TestJob < TrinidadScheduler.DateInterval :start => Time.now, :end => Time.now + 240, :unit => :second, :interval => 5
  def run
    _logger.info "I am inside this block" #=> prints "I am inside this block" every 5 seconds
  end
end

The DateInterval Trigger will execute a triggered process based on the configuration options passed. For more information on using the DateInterval trigger consult the source.

run_later

Schedules a block of code to run in another Thread after execution proceeds in the current Thread *after the job runs it removes itself from the job scheduler

Using run_later with default 3 second delay

TrinidadScheduler.run_later do
  _logger.info "I am inside this block" #=> prints "I am inside this block" 
end

Using run_later with 20 second delay

TrinidadScheduler.run_later(:delay => 20) do
  _logger.info "I am inside this block" #=> prints "I am inside this block" 
end

Behind the scenes run_later is actually implemented using an anonymous class that inherits from TrinidadScheduler.Simple to schedule the run.

Inspiration

Open Source software is a community effort - thanks to all, but the following were instrumental in the inspiration for TrinidadScheduler.

techwhizbang for handling of Quartz JobFactory

why_metaid for metaid extension

TERRACOTTA for continued support of Quartz Scheduler

calavera for Trinidad Server