Getting Started

Sign up for a SimpleWorker account, it's free to try!

Configure SimpleWorker

You really just need your access keys.

SimpleWorker.configure do |config|
    config.access_key = ACCESS_KEY
    config.secret_key = SECRET_KEY
end

Write a Worker

Here's an example worker that sends an email:

require 'simple_worker'

class EmailWorker < SimpleWorker::Base

    attr_accessor :to, :subject, :body

    # This is the method that will be run
    def run
        send_email(:to=>to, :subject=>subject, :body=>body)
    end

    def send_email
        # Put sending code here
    end
end

Test It Locally

Let's say someone does something in your app and you want to send an email about it.

worker = EmailWorker.new
worker.to = current_user.email
worker.subject = "Here is your mail!"
worker.body = "This is the body"
**worker.run**

Queue up your Worker

Let's say someone does something in your app and you want to send an email about it.

worker = EmailWorker.new
worker.to = current_user.email
worker.subject = "Here is your mail!"
worker.body = "This is the body"
**worker.queue**

Schedule your Worker

There are two scenarios here, one is the scenario where you want something to happen due to a user action in your application. This is almost the same as queuing your worker.

worker = EmailWorker.new
worker.to = current_user.email
worker.subject = "Here is your mail!"
worker.body = "This is the body"
**worker.schedule(:start_at=>1.hours.since)**

Check Status

If you still have access to the worker object, just call:

worker.status

If you only have the job ID, call:

SimpleWorker.status(job_id)

This will return a hash like:

 {"task_id"=>"ece460ce-12d8-11e0-8e15-12313b0440c6",
 "status"=>"running",
 "msg"=>nil,
 "start_time"=>"2010-12-28T23:19:36+00:00",
 "end_time"=>nil,
 "duration"=>nil,
 "progress"=>{"percent"=>25}}

TODO: How to access log.

Logging

log "Starting to do something..."

The log will be available for viewing via the SimpleWorker UI or via log in the API.

Setting Progress

set_progress(:percent => 25, :message => "We are a quarter of the way there!")

You can actually put anything in this hash and it will be returned with a call to status.

Schedule a Recurring Job - CRON

The alternative is when you want to user it like Cron. In this case you'll probably want to write a script that will schedule, you don't want to schedule it everytime your app starts or anything so best to keep it external.

Create a file called 'schedule_email_worker.rb' and add this:

require 'simple_worker'
require_relative 'email_worker'

worker = EmailWorker.new
worker.to = current_user.email
worker.subject = "Here is your mail!"
worker.body = "This is the body"
worker.schedule(:start_at=>1.hours.since, :run_every=>3600)

Now run it and your worker will be scheduled to run every hour.

SimpleWorker on Rails

Rails 2.X:

config.gem 'simple_worker'

Rails 3.X:

gem 'simple_worker'

Now you can use your workers like they're part of your app! We recommend putting your worker classes in /app/workers path.

Configuring a Database Connection

Although you could easily do this in your worker, this makes it a bit more convenient and more importantly it will create the connection for you. If you are using ActiveRecord, you would add the following to your SimpleWorker config:

config.database = {
  :adapter => "mysql2",
  :host => "localhost",
  :database => "appdb",
  :username => "appuser",
  :password => "secret"
}

Then before you job is run, SimpleWorker will establish the ActiveRecord connection.

Including/Merging other Ruby Classes

If you are using the Rails setup above, you can probably skip this as your models will automatically be merged.

class AvgWorker < SimpleWorker::Base

    attr_accessor :aws_access_key,
                  :aws_secret_key,
                  :s3_suffix

    merge File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "..", "app", "models", "user.rb")
    merge File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "..", "app", "models", "account")

Or simpler yet, try using relative paths:

merge "../app/models/user"
merge "../app/models/account.rb"

Bringing in other Workers

merge_worker TODO

Configuration Options

Global Attributes

These are attributes that can be set as part of your config block then will be set on all your worker objects automatically. This is particularly good for things like database connection info or things that you would need to use across the board.

Eg:

config.global_attributes[:db_user] = "sa"
config.global_attributes[:db_pass] = "pass"

Then in your worker, you would have the attributes defined:

attr_accessor :db_user, :db_pass