#127 Rake in Background

Sep 15, 2008 | 10 minutes | Performance, Controllers, Tools, Background Jobs

In need of a background process? You may be able to accomplish this with a simple Rake task. See how in this episode.

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Note: Ending the rake command with "&" will not work in Windows. Instead You'll need to prefix it with "start" to run the command in the background. See the comments below for details.

          controllers/application.rb
        
def call_rake(task, options = {})
  options[:rails_env] ||= Rails.env
  args = options.map { |n, v| "#{n.to_s.upcase}='#{v}'" }
  system "/usr/bin/rake #{task} #{args.join(' ')} --trace 2>&1 >> #{Rails.root}/log/rake.log &"
end

          mailings_controller.rb
        
def deliver
  call_rake :send_mailing, :mailing_id => params[:id].to_i
  flash[:notice] = "Delivering mailing"
  redirect_to mailings_url
end

          lib/tasks/mailer.rake
        
desc "Send mailing"
task :send_mailing => :environment do
  mailing = Mailing.find(ENV["MAILING_ID"])
  mailing.deliver
end

          models/mailing.rb
        
def deliver
  sleep 10 # placeholder for sending email
  update_attribute(:delivered_at, Time.now)
end