Seeking ideas for a cron implementation

[Karthik Gurusamy]

Hi,

I'm working on a cron like functionality for my application.
The outer loops runs continuously waking every x seconds (say x=180,
300, ..).
It needs to know what events in cron has expired and for each event do
the work needed.

It's basically like unix cron or like a calendar application with some
restrictions. The outer loop may come back a lot later and many events
might have missed their schedule -- but this is okay.. We don't have
to worry about missed events (if there were n misses, we just need to
execute call back once).

Let's take some examples [Let e denotes an event]
e1: hour=1 min=30 # Run every day once at
1:30 AM
e2: wday=0, hour=1 min=0 # run every Monday at 1 AM
e3: month=10, day=10, hour=10 min=0 # run on October 10th, 10 AM
every year

class Cron_Event (object):
def __init__ (year=None, month=None, day=None, hour=None ..etc)
# do init

class Cron (object):
def __init__ ():
# do init
def event_add (e):
# add an event
def execute()
# see if any events has "expired" .. call it's callback
# I'm looking for ideas on how to manage the events here

From outer loop
cron = Cron()
# create various events like
e1 = Cron_Event(hour=1)
cron.event_add(e1)
e2 = Cron_Event(wday=0, hour=1)
cron.event_add(e2)

while True:
sleep x seconds (or wait until woken up)
cron.execute()
# do other work.. x may change here

If I can restrict to hour and minute, it seems manageable as the
interval between two occurrences is a constant. But allowing days like
every Monday or 1st of every month makes things complicated. Moreover
I would like each constraint in e to take on multiple possibilities
(like every day at 1AM, 2 AM and 4 AM do this).

I'm looking for solutions that can leverage datetime.datetime
routines.
My current ideas include for each e, track the next time it will fire
(in seconds since epoch as given by time.time()). Once current time
has passed that time, we execute the event. e.g.1219436401.741966 <--- compute event's next firing in a format like
this
The problem seems to be how to compute that future point in time (in
seconds since epoch) for a generic Cron_Event.

Say how do I know the exact time in future that will satisfy a
constraint like:
month=11, wday=1, hour=3, min=30 # At 3:30 AM on a Tuesday in
November

Thanks for your thoughts.

Karthik

 

[Sean DiZazzo]

Hi,

I'm working on a cron like functionality for my application.
The outer loops runs continuously waking every x seconds (say x=180,
300, ..).
It needs to know what events in cron has expired and for each event do
the work needed.

It's basically like unix cron or like a calendar application with some
restrictions. The outer loop may come back a lot later and many events
might have missed their schedule -- but this is okay.. We don't have
to worry about missed events (if there were n misses, we just need to
execute call back once).

Let's take some examples [Let e denotes an event]
e1: hour=1  min=30                             # Run every day once at
1:30 AM
e2: wday=0, hour=1  min=0                   # run every Monday at 1 AM
e3: month=10, day=10, hour=10 min=0  # run on October 10th, 10 AM
every year

class Cron_Event (object):
    def __init__ (year=None, month=None, day=None, hour=None ...etc)
      #  do init

class Cron (object):
    def __init__ ():
        # do init
    def event_add (e):
        # add an event
    def execute()
        # see if any events has "expired" .. call it's callback
        # I'm looking for ideas on how to manage the events here

From outer loop
cron = Cron()
# create various events like
e1 = Cron_Event(hour=1)
cron.event_add(e1)
e2 = Cron_Event(wday=0, hour=1)
cron.event_add(e2)

while True:
    sleep x seconds (or wait until woken up)
    cron.execute()
    # do other work.. x may change here

If I can restrict to hour and minute, it seems manageable as the
interval between two occurrences is a constant. But allowing days like
every Monday or 1st of every month makes things complicated. Moreover
I would like each constraint in e to take on multiple possibilities
(like every day at 1AM,  2 AM and 4 AM do this).

I'm looking for solutions that can leverage datetime.datetime
routines.
My current ideas include for each e, track the next time it will fire
(in seconds since epoch as given by time.time()). Once current time
has passed that time, we execute the event. e.g.>>> datetime.datetime.now()

datetime.datetime(2008, 8, 22, 13, 19, 54, 5567)>>> time.time()

1219436401.741966    <--- compute event's next firing in a format like
this



The problem seems to be how to compute that future point in time (in
seconds since epoch)  for a generic Cron_Event.

Say how do I know the exact time in future  that will satisfy a
constraint like:
 month=11, wday=1, hour=3, min=30    # At 3:30 AM on a Tuesday in
November

Thanks for your thoughts.

Karthik

I only scanned your message, but maybe datetime.timedelta() will
help..
2008-08-23 13:48:49.335225

~Sean

 

[Karthik Gurusamy]

Hi,

I'm working on acronlike functionality for my application.
The outer loops runs continuously waking every x seconds (say x=180,
300, ..).
It needs to know what events incronhas expired and for each event do
the work needed.

It's basically like unixcronor like a calendar application with some
restrictions. The outer loop may come back a lot later and many events
might have missed their schedule -- but this is okay.. We don't have
to worry about missed events (if there were n misses, we just need to
execute call back once).

Let's take some examples [Let e denotes an event]
e1: hour=1  min=30                             # Run every day once at
1:30 AM
e2: wday=0, hour=1  min=0                   # run every Monday at 1 AM
e3: month=10, day=10, hour=10 min=0  # run on October 10th, 10 AM
every year

class Cron_Event (object):
    def __init__ (year=None, month=None, day=None, hour=None ..etc)
      #  do init

classCron(object):
    def __init__ ():
        # do init
    def event_add (e):
        # add an event
    def execute()
        # see if any events has "expired" .. call it's callback
        # I'm looking for ideas on how to manage the events here

From outer loop
cron=Cron()
# create various events like
e1 = Cron_Event(hour=1)
cron.event_add(e1)
e2 = Cron_Event(wday=0, hour=1)
cron.event_add(e2)

while True:
    sleep x seconds (or wait until woken up)
   cron.execute()
    # do other work.. x may change here

If I can restrict to hour and minute, it seems manageable as the
interval between two occurrences is a constant. But allowing days like
every Monday or 1st of every month makes things complicated. Moreover
I would like each constraint in e to take on multiple possibilities
(like every day at 1AM,  2 AM and 4 AM do this).

I'm looking for solutions that can leverage datetime.datetime
routines.
My current ideas include for each e, track the next time it will fire
(in seconds since epoch as given by time.time()). Once current time
has passed that time, we execute the event. e.g.>>> datetime.datetime.now()

datetime.datetime(2008, 8, 22, 13, 19, 54, 5567)>>> time.time()

1219436401.741966    <--- compute event's next firing in a format like
this

The problem seems to be how to compute that future point in time (in
seconds since epoch)  for a generic Cron_Event.

Say how do I know the exact time in future  that will satisfy a
constraint like:
 month=11, wday=1, hour=3, min=30    # At 3:30 AM on a Tuesday in
November

Thanks for your thoughts.

Karthik

I only scanned your message, but maybe datetime.timedelta() will
help..

2008-08-22 13:48:49.335225>>> day = datetime.timedelta(1)
2008-08-23 13:48:49.335225

Thanks, I found using a more efficient algorithm tricky and seemed
error prone.
[I do welcome ideas still if anyone has a cool solution]

I used your idea and took the easy way out by using a brute-force
search.

Here is an outline if anyone faces similar problem:
hours, minutes are lists: say for every day at 1:30 pm and 2:45 pm,
hours=[13, 14] and minutes=[30, 45,].
I restricted myself to minutes and hours (and every day) to simplify
the problem.

def set_expiry_time_check_in_a_day (self, now, target,
hours, mins, flags=set()):
"""
A small utility routine to simulate 'goto'
Looks like now could be computed inside this function --
the small
drift due to time taken in this function should be
negligible
"""
# let's see if in today we can find an expiry
# we do brute force search starting with the smallest hour
for hour in hours:
for min in mins:
target = target.replace(hour=hour, minute=min,
second=0,
microsecond=0)
if 'is_debug_1' in flags:
print "Trying target time: %s..." % target
if target > now:
if 'is_debug_1' in flags:
print "Found target time: %s" % (target, )
return target # simulates a break from two loops
return None

def set_expiry_time (self, event, flags=set()):
"""
For a given event, compute and remember when it will fire
next
"""
now = datetime.datetime.now()

target = now # start checking from now..

# assumption, hours and mins are atleast one int element array
# and they are in sorted order
hours = event.spec['hours']
mins = event.spec['minutes']

tries = 0
while True: # runs of each day.. tomorrow ...
tries += 1
if tries > 50: # safety valve, we are basically in
infinite loop
raise Exception("Tried 50 times.. in infinite loop??")

target_found = self.set_expiry_time_check_in_a_day(now,
target,
hours, mins, flags)

if target_found is not None: # found a match on "this" day
target = target_found
break

# we need to increase the day count..
increment = datetime.timedelta(days=1)
target += increment
# added 24 hours .. let's go and check tomorrow ...

event.target = target