/background_lite

Easy-to-use Rails plugin for background processing

Primary LanguageRubyMIT LicenseMIT

BackgroundLite ↑

This Rails plugin supersedes the background plugin, available here:

http://github.com/imedo/background/tree/master

It allows you to execute methods in a background task with a very intuitive and easy syntax. It is as easy as that:

class MyModel
  def complex_operation(argument)
    ...
  end
  background_method :complex_operation
end

Now, whenever MyModel#complex_operation is called, it will be run in the background process.

Refer to the Class#background_method documentation for details.

What this plugin is ↑

This plugin is an easy-to-use interface for background processing frameworks. Theoretically, you can use it in combination with any of the messaging / background processing frameworks out there, though there are not many handlers implemented yet. However, implementing a handler is very easy.

What this plugin is NOT ↑

This plugin is NOT a background processing framework. To make it work efficiently, you need an existing framework installed and configured. Right now, support for the ActiveMessaging framework is implemented.

However, there is out-of-the-box support for using script/runner to perform background tasks, as well as forking.

When to use it ↑

  • Your Rails process gets unresponsive due to some time-consuming task.

  • The task does not need to show an immediate effect.

Features ↑

  • Background processing using multiple background processing frameworks.

  • Fallback processing, if your background processing framework isn’t responding correctly.

  • Works out-of-the-box with script/runner and forking and DRb.

  • Fallback handler that streams messages containing background tasks to disk, to later replay jobs that failed because of a temporary error.

  • Error reporting through different channels, depending on the task at hand.

    • Exception notification.

    • Stdout (useful for debugging).

    • Stderr (useful for debugging).

    • Silent, which swallows all exceptions.

  • Supported processing frameworks.

    • ActiveMessaging.

    • Resque

    • script/runner.

    • fork (works only on Unix-like environments).

    • DRb with an example runner in scripts/background_queue (not really suitable for production use)

    • others might follow (it’s really easy to write a handler).

  • Easy configuration, depending on the environment, in config/background.yml.

  • Ability to override the configuration per method.

Dependencies ↑

There are no dependencies besides ActiveSupport, which is required by Rails anyways.

Installation ↑

Just copy the background_lite folder into vendor/plugins, and you’re good to go.

Configuration ↑

Depending on the background processing framework that you are using, you might have to do some configuration. See the documentation of the respective background handler for details.

Copyright © 2008-2010 imedo GmbH, released under the MIT license