README

Simple task controller supporting multiple types of tasks.

Installation

You can install this class via composer:

composer require yoshi2889/tasks

Usage

Create an instance of TaskController and add any instance of TaskInterface to it:

<?php

$loop = React\EventLoop\Factory::create();
$taskController = new \Yoshi2889\Tasks\TaskController($loop);

// A simple callback task, run only once, which will trigger in 10 seconds:
$callbackTask = new \Yoshi2889\Tasks\CallbackTask(function ()
{
	echo 'Hello world!' . PHP_EOL;
}, 10);
// Output (after 10 seconds): Hello world!

Repeatable Tasks

A RepeatableTask instance is a Task which runs its child task on an interval. Before a RepeatableTask starts running the child task, it first checks if its expiry time has passed. If it has not, it will not run the task.

For example, to create a new RepeatableTask that runs the previous CallbackTask every 5 seconds:

$repeatableTask = new \Yoshi2889\Tasks\RepeatableTask($callbackTask, 5);

This task would only start running after the 10 seconds defined before in the CallableTask have passed.

Cancelling Tasks

Tasks can be cancelled prematurely. How a cancel is handled depends on the task type. For instance, if we cancel a RepeatableTask, it will internally cancel its child task and stop repeating, after which it will be discarded:

$repeatableTask->cancel();

However, if we were to cancel a CallbackTask, it will just be put in a state where it can no longer be run by the TaskController and will thus be discarded on the next run.

TaskController must never cancel tasks on its own, this is up to the user.

Discarding Tasks

By default, a Task which does not return a new Task on its run() method will be discarded. However, if a Task does pass back a new Task, the original Task itself gets discarded, but the Task instance which is passed back will be added in its place. We can observe this with the following snippet:

$callbackTask = new \Yoshi2889\Tasks\CallbackTask(function ()
{
	echo 'Hello ';
	return new \Yoshi2889\Tasks\CallbackTask(function ()
	{
		echo 'world!' . PHP_EOL;
	}, 5); 
}, 5);
// Output (after 10 seconds): Hello world!

Discarded tasks will be removed from the TaskController.

Implementing custom Tasks

The TaskController accepts any class that implements the TaskInterface interface. This interface contains the following methods:

• getExpiryTime(): int: Gets the UNIX timestamp on which the task should be run and discarded afterwards. Please note that by default, TaskController runs at a 1-second interval and timing might be slightly off.
• run(): ?TaskInterface: Runs the actual task. Return an object implementing TaskInterface to insert a new task, or null to discard the current task.
• cancel(): void: Used to cancel the task, or to bring it in a state where it cannot be run. It is a good idea to have getExpiryTime() always return 0 after this method is called so that the task will be discarded.

License

This code is released under the MIT License. Please see LICENSE to read it.