NAME
bj
SYNOPSIS
bj (migration_code|generate_migration|migrate|setup|run|submit|list|set|config|pid) [options]+
DESCRIPTION
________________________________
Overview
--------------------------------
Backgroundjob (Bj) is a simple to use background priority queue for rails.
Although not yet tested on windows, the design of bj is such that operation
should be possible on any operating system, including M$.
Jobs can be submitted to the queue directly using the api or from the
commandline using the 'bj' script. For example
code:
Bj.submit 'cat /etc/password'
cli:
bj submit cat /etc/password
When used from inside a rails application bj arranges that another process
will always be running in the background to process the jobs that you submit.
By using a separate process to run jobs bj does not impact the resource
utilization of your rails application at all and enables several very cool
features:
1) Bj allows you to sumbit jobs to any of your configured databases and,
in each case, spawns a separate background process to run jobs from that
queue
Bj.in :production do
Bj.submit 'production_job.exe'
end
Bj.in :development do
Bj.submit 'development_job.exe'
end
2) Although bj ensures that a process is always running to process
your jobs, you can start a proces manually. This means that any machine
capable of seeing your RAILS_ROOT can run jobs for your application, allowing
one to setup a cluster of machines doing the work of a single front end rails
applicaiton.
________________________________
Install
--------------------------------
Bj can be installed two ways: as a gem or as a plugin.
gem:
1) $sudo gem install bj
2) bj setup ./rails_root/
plugin:
1) ./script/plugin install http://codeforpeople.rubyforge.org/svn/rails/plugins/bj
2) ./script/bj setup
________________________________
Api
--------------------------------
submit jobs for background processing. 'jobs' can be a string or array of
strings. options are applied to each job in the 'jobs', and the list of
submitted jobs is always returned. options (string or symbol) can be
:rails_env => production|development|key_in_database_yml
when given this keyword causes bj to submit jobs to the
specified database. default is RAILS_ENV.
:priority => any number, including negative ones. default is zero.
:tag => a tag added to the job. simply makes searching easier.
:env => a hash specifying any additional environment vars the background
process should have.
:stdin => any stdin the background process should have.
eg:
jobs = Bj.submit 'echo foobar', :tag => 'simple job'
jobs = Bj.submit '/bin/cat', :stdin => 'in the hat'
jobs = Bj.submit './script/runner ./scripts/a.rb', :rails_env => 'production'
when jobs are run, they are run in RAILS_ROOT. various attributes are
available *only* once the job has finished. you can check whether or not a
job is finished by using the #finished method, which simple does a reload and
checks to see if the exit_status is non-nil.
eg:
jobs = Bj.submit list_of_jobs, :tag => 'important'
...
jobs.each do |job|
if job.finished?
p job.exit_status
p job.stdout
p job.stderr
end
end
See lib/bj/api.rb for more details.
PARAMETERS
--rails_root=rails_root, -R (0 ~> rails_root=)
the rails_root will be guessed unless you set this
--rails_env=rails_env, -E (0 ~> rails_env=development)
set the rails_env
--log=log, -l (0 ~> log=STDERR)
set the logfile
--help, -h
AUTHOR
ara.t.howard@gmail.com
URIS
http://codeforpeople.com/lib/ruby/
http://rubyforge.org/projects/codeforpeople/
http://codeforpeople.rubyforge.org/svn/rails/plugins/