class Concurrent::TimerTask

A very common concurrency pattern is to run a thread that performs a task at regular intervals. The thread that performs the task sleeps for the given interval then wakes up and performs the task. Lather, rinse, repeat… This pattern causes two problems. First, it is difficult to test the business logic of the task because the task itself is tightly coupled with the concurrency logic. Second, an exception raised while performing the task can cause the entire thread to abend. In a long-running application where the task thread is intended to run for days/weeks/years a crashed task thread can pose a significant problem. ‘TimerTask` alleviates both problems.

When a ‘TimerTask` is launched it starts a thread for monitoring the execution interval. The `TimerTask` thread does not perform the task, however. Instead, the TimerTask launches the task on a separate thread. Should the task experience an unrecoverable crash only the task thread will crash. This makes the `TimerTask` very fault tolerant. Additionally, the `TimerTask` thread can respond to the success or failure of the task, performing logging or ancillary operations. `TimerTask` can also be configured with a timeout value allowing it to kill a task that runs too long.

One other advantage of ‘TimerTask` is that it forces the business logic to be completely decoupled from the concurrency logic. The business logic can be tested separately then passed to the `TimerTask` for scheduling and running.

In some cases it may be necessary for a ‘TimerTask` to affect its own execution cycle. To facilitate this, a reference to the TimerTask instance is passed as an argument to the provided block every time the task is executed.

The ‘TimerTask` class includes the `Dereferenceable` mixin module so the result of the last execution is always available via the `#value` method. Dereferencing options can be passed to the `TimerTask` during construction or at any later time using the `#set_deref_options` method.

‘TimerTask` supports notification through the Ruby standard library {ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.0/libdoc/observer/rdoc/Observable.html Observable} module. On execution the `TimerTask` will notify the observers with three arguments: time of execution, the result of the block (or nil on failure), and any raised exceptions (or nil on success). If the timeout interval is exceeded the observer will receive a `Concurrent::TimeoutError` object as the third argument.

@!macro copy_options

@example Basic usage

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new{ puts 'Boom!' }
task.execute

task.execution_interval #=> 60 (default)
task.timeout_interval   #=> 30 (default)

# wait 60 seconds...
#=> 'Boom!'

task.shutdown #=> true

@example Configuring ‘:execution_interval` and `:timeout_interval`

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(execution_interval: 5, timeout_interval: 5) do
       puts 'Boom!'
     end

task.execution_interval #=> 5
task.timeout_interval   #=> 5

@example Immediate execution with ‘:run_now`

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(run_now: true){ puts 'Boom!' }
task.execute

#=> 'Boom!'

@example Last ‘#value` and `Dereferenceable` mixin

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(
  dup_on_deref: true,
  execution_interval: 5
){ Time.now }

task.execute
Time.now   #=> 2013-11-07 18:06:50 -0500
sleep(10)
task.value #=> 2013-11-07 18:06:55 -0500

@example Controlling execution from within the block

timer_task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(execution_interval: 1) do |task|
  task.execution_interval.times{ print 'Boom! ' }
  print "\n"
  task.execution_interval += 1
  if task.execution_interval > 5
    puts 'Stopping...'
    task.shutdown
  end
end

timer_task.execute # blocking call - this task will stop itself
#=> Boom!
#=> Boom! Boom!
#=> Boom! Boom! Boom!
#=> Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
#=> Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
#=> Stopping...

@example Observation

class TaskObserver
  def update(time, result, ex)
    if result
      print "(#{time}) Execution successfully returned #{result}\n"
    elsif ex.is_a?(Concurrent::TimeoutError)
      print "(#{time}) Execution timed out\n"
    else
      print "(#{time}) Execution failed with error #{ex}\n"
    end
  end
end

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(execution_interval: 1, timeout_interval: 1){ 42 }
task.add_observer(TaskObserver.new)
task.execute
sleep 4

#=> (2013-10-13 19:08:58 -0400) Execution successfully returned 42
#=> (2013-10-13 19:08:59 -0400) Execution successfully returned 42
#=> (2013-10-13 19:09:00 -0400) Execution successfully returned 42
task.shutdown

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(execution_interval: 1, timeout_interval: 1){ sleep }
task.add_observer(TaskObserver.new)
task.execute

#=> (2013-10-13 19:07:25 -0400) Execution timed out
#=> (2013-10-13 19:07:27 -0400) Execution timed out
#=> (2013-10-13 19:07:29 -0400) Execution timed out
task.shutdown

task = Concurrent::TimerTask.new(execution_interval: 1){ raise StandardError }
task.add_observer(TaskObserver.new)
task.execute

#=> (2013-10-13 19:09:37 -0400) Execution failed with error StandardError
#=> (2013-10-13 19:09:38 -0400) Execution failed with error StandardError
#=> (2013-10-13 19:09:39 -0400) Execution failed with error StandardError
task.shutdown

@see ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.0/libdoc/observer/rdoc/Observable.html @see docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/util/TimerTask.html