readme

Author: Adam Wiggins

README.md

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+Stalker - a job queueing DSL for Beanstalk
+==========================================
+
+[Beanstalkd](http://kr.github.com/beanstalkd/) is a fast, lightweight queueing backend inspired by mmemcached.  The [Ruby Beanstalk client](http://beanstalk.rubyforge.org/) is a bit raw, however, so Stalker provides a thin wrapper to make job queueing from your Ruby app easy and fun.
+
+Queueing jobs
+-------------
+
+From anywhere in your app:
+
+    require 'stalker'
+
+    Stalker.enqueue('email.send', :to => '[email protected]')
+    Stalker.enqueue('post.cleanup.all')
+    Stalker.enqueue('post.cleanup', :id => post.id)
+
+Working jobs
+------------
+
+In a standalone file, typically jobs.rb or worker.rb:
+
+    require 'stalker'
+    include Stalker
+
+    job 'email.send' do |args|
+      Pony.send(:to => args['to'], :subject => "Hello there")
+    end
+
+    job 'post.cleanup.all' do |args|
+      Post.all.each do |post|
+        enqueue('post.cleanup', :id => post.all)
+      end
+    end
+
+    job 'post.cleanup' do |args|
+      Post.find(args['id']).cleanup
+    end
+
+Running
+-------
+
+First, make sure you have Beanstalkd installed and running:
+
+    $ sudo port install beanstalkd
+    $ beanstalkd
+
+Stalker:
+
+    $ sudo gem install stalker
+
+Now run a worker using the stalk binary:
+
+    $ stalk jobs.rb
+    [Sat Apr 17 14:13:40 -0700 2010] Working 3 jobs  :: [ email.send post.cleanup.all post.cleanup ]
+
+Stalker will log to stdout as it starts working each job.
+
+Filter to a list of jobs you wish to run with an argument:
+
+    $ stalk jobs.rb post.cleanup.all,post.cleanup
+    [Sat Apr 17 14:13:40 -0700 2010] Working 2 jobs  :: [ post.cleanup.all post.cleanup ]
+
+In a production environment you may run one or more high-priority workers (limited to short/urgent jobs) and any number of regular workers (working all jobs).  For example, two workers working just the email.send job, and four running all jobs:
+
+    $ for i in 1 2; do stalk jobs.rb email.send > log/urgent-worker.log 2>&1; end
+    $ for i in 1 2 3 4; do stalk jobs.rb > log/worker.log 2>&1; end
+
+Tidbits
+-------
+
+* Jobs are serialized as JSON, so you should stick to strings, integers, arrays, and hashes as arguments to jobs.  e.g. don't pass full Ruby objects - use something like an ActiveRecord/MongoMapper/CouchRest id instead.
+* Because there are no class definitions associated with jobs, you can queue jobs from anywhere without needing to include your full app's environment.
+* If you need to change the location of your Beanstalk from the default (localhost:11300), set BEANSTALK_URL in your environment, e.g. export BEANSTALK_URL=beanstalk://example.com:11300/
+* The stalk binary is just for convenience, you can also run a worker with a straight Ruby command:
+    $ ruby -r jobs -e Stalker.work
+
+Meta
+----
+
+Created by Adam Wiggins
+
+Heavily inspired by [Minion](http://github.com/orionz/minion) by Orion Henry
+
+Released under the MIT License: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
+
+http://github.com/adamwiggins/stalker
+