Question

I have a ruby code that triggers php script over https.

Use case: The php script usually finishes in 5 minutes so I have set up time out for https request after 10 minutes. I need a timer that would trigger code after let’s say 7 minutes after the https request started.

I was thinking of using thread that I created just before I initiate https request. I am not sure if this the correct way to approach this. Maybe there is not need to use threads at all. I am using ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-16 patchlevel 302) [i386-mingw32]. Also I don’t now if I can ‘kill’ the thread on successful finish of https request.

uri = URI.parse(url)
start = Time.new
http_read_timeout=60*10

connection = Net::HTTP.new(uri.host, 443)
connection.use_ssl = true
begin   
        response = connection.start() do |http|
            http.open_timeout =  50
            http.read_timeout = http_read_timeout
            http.request_get(uri.request_uri)
            # here I need to place a code that is triggered 
            # in case of custom timeout is reached
        end
rescue Timeout::Error
#  "Connection failed
    time_out_message ="security time out - after #{http_read_timeout} sec"
return time_out_message         

end

puts "finished"

Answer 1

The basic structure could be like this:

seconds_timer = MyDelay
counter = 0

test_thread = Thread.new do
  run_http_php_test
end

while test_thread.alive?
 counter += 1
 if counter > seconds_timer
   handle_custom_timeout_somehow       
   # if you want to halt run_http_php_test: 
   test_thread.kill if test_thread.alive?
   # otherwise:
   break
 end
 sleep 1
end
# the below doesn't apply if you kill the run_http_php_test thread
test_thread.join if test_thread.alive?

…but of course you could change that sleep 1 to whatever polling interval you like. Polling is nicer than just forcing your original thread to sleep, because the code will finish faster if run_http_php_test is done before you hit your custom timeout value.

Most or all of your code above can be in the run_http_php_test method, or inserted directly…whichever you’d prefer.