Question

I’ve currently created a custom rake file that does the following:

1.) Checks an External Feed for “NEW” Items

2.) For each new item in the feed array,it updates my Database with a new record

3.) I’ve currently got it on a WHILE loop. The while loop has an (@loopcheck) instance variable that is set to true initially, and if any exception is raised. Resets it to false (so the loop ends).

Here’s an example:

   While(@loopcheck) do 
      begin
       ....(code here)...
      rescue
        Exception => e
        @loopcheck = false
      end
      sleep(120)
   End

Is this bad coding? Is there a better way to do this? Ideally, I just want to run a background task to simply check for a new feed every 2-3 mins. I looked into Starling/Workling, but that seemed a bit like overkill, and I wasn’t sure about running script/runner via CRON, since it reloads the entire rails environment each time. BackgroundRB a bit overkill too? No?

Just wanted to get some ideas.

Answer 1

Combine cron with the sleep. It will ensure that things don’t completely break down if you hit an exception. Loading “complete rails environment” is not all that bad: 3-6 secs worst case. so run your sleep loop 5 times. and cron the rake task to run every 12 minutes. Makes sense?

*/12 * * * * rake your task

## your rake task - valid for 10 mins -- 5 x 2 mins sleep worth.

@loopcheck = true

1.upto(5) do 
    begin
       ....(code here)...
    rescue
      Exception => e
      @loopcheck = false
    end
    break if not @loopcheck
    sleep(120)
end