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Cron Scheduler Plugin for CakePHP 3

• Introduction
• Why Use It
• Installation
• Starting The Scheduler
• Defining Schedules
  • Scheduling CakePHP Shell
  • Scheduling Any Other Commands
  • Frequency Options
• Hooks
  • Before A Job Runs
  • After A Job Is Finished

CakeScheduler allows you to write cron jobs right from PHP files.It works for CakePHP shell as well as any other valid PHP code.Basically it is a replacement of the conventional crontab file.

The conventional way of writing a cron job is to place an entry in the crontab file each time youneed to schedule a job. The problem with this approach is that you have to login(SSH) to the servereach time.

By using CakeScheduler, we are able to place the cron jobs in the source control system and deploythem to production just like any other PHP code.

• To install the CakeScheduler plugin, you can use composer. From your application's ROOT directory (where composer.json file is located) run the following:

  composer require watchowl/cake-scheduler

• You will need to add the following line to your application'sconfig/bootstrap.php file:

  Plugin::load('WatchOwl/CakeScheduler');

We only need to install one ordinary cron job which runs every minute.This cron job will enable CakeScheduler to schedule all the subsequent jobs:

* * * * * /path-to-project/bin/cake cake_scheduler run schedule:run

A schedule is basically a PHP file ending withTasks.php and it must return theCakeSchedule object.All schedules should be place inside a folder calledschedule. This folder must reside at the root directorywhere composer.json file is located.

For example:

// schedule/BackTasks.php$schedule =new \WatchOwl\CakeScheduler\Schedule\CakeSchedule();$schedule    ->run('/usr/bin/php backup.php')    ->daily()    ->description('Test');return$schedule;

To schedule a CakePHP shell, callCakeSchedule::shell:

$schedule->shell('MyCake awesome')

To schedule any other commands, callCakeSchedule::run:

$cakeSchedule->run('/usr/bin/php backup.php')

There is plenty of ways to define the frequency of the execution:

Under the hood, CakeSchedule is using the greatlavary/crunz library.It has a large number of options for us to configure the frequency of the execution.Check out its official documentation if you are looking for more available frequency.

Hooks make it easy to integrate with other services such aswww.watchowl.io.

To do something before a job is executed, we can use thebefore() hook:

For example:

$schedule =new \WatchOwl\CakeScheduler\Schedule\CakeSchedule();$schedule    ->run('/usr/bin/php backup.php')    ->before(function() {// Do something before the job runs     })    ->daily()    ->description('Test');return$schedule;

To do something after a job is executed, we can use theafter() hook:

For example:

$schedule =new \WatchOwl\CakeScheduler\Schedule\CakeSchedule();$schedule    ->run('/usr/bin/php backup.php')    ->after(function() {// Do something after the job is finished     })    ->daily()    ->description('Test');return$schedule;