Example A - The Basics

This example demonstrates a Queue Worker process that polls the default queue for jobs, and how to enqueue jobs for this Queue Worker.

To run this example, you'll need:

• PostgreSQL, version 9.5 or later, installed locally.
• The Clojure clj command-line tool, version 1.10.1.697 or later, with support for the -X option. (Installation instructions)
• Two terminal windows.
• The Proletarian Git repo cloned to a local directory: git clone git@github.com:msolli/proletarian.git. We'll assume you're in this directory going forward.

All right, let's get started.

1. Create the example database

There is a Makefile target for creating the example database. Run it with make examples.db.install. Here's how it looks:

$ make examples.db.install
DATABASE_NAME=proletarian ./database/install.sh

Installing Proletarian Database
= = =

Creating User
- - -
» proletarian role

Creating Database
- - -
» proletarian database

Creating Schema, Tables, and Index
» proletarian schema
» proletarian.job table
» proletarian.archived_job table
» proletarian.job_queue_process_at index

Granting Privileges
- - -
» schema privileges
» table privileges

= = =
Done Installing Proletarian Database

You can uninstall the example database with make examples.db.uninstall, and re-create it with make examples.db.recreate.

(Please note that while the database install script allows for customization of the database name, the examples assume that the default (proletarian) is used.)

2. Run the Queue Worker

In one of your terminal windows, run this command to start the Queue Worker:

$ clj -X:examples:example-a example-a.worker/run

It should start a process that polls the default queue for jobs every 5 seconds:

$ clj -X:examples:example-a example-a.worker/run
Number of jobs in :proletarian/default queue: 0
Number of jobs in proletarian.jobs table: 0
Number of jobs in proletarian.archived_jobs table: 0

Starting worker for :proletarian/default queue with polling interval 5 s
:proletarian.worker/polling-for-jobs {:worker-thread-id 1, :proletarian.worker/queue-worker-id proletarian[:proletarian/default]}
:proletarian.worker/polling-for-jobs {:worker-thread-id 1, :proletarian.worker/queue-worker-id proletarian[:proletarian/default]}
[...and so forth, until you press Ctrl-C]

Leave this process running while you continue to step 3.

What is happening here, is that we've started a Queue Worker thread pool in a JVM process that continuously polls the jobs table for new work to be done. The polling interval is configurable - in this example it is 5 seconds. (In a production system you'd probably use a much smaller polling interval - the default is 100 ms. For this example, though, it is much easier to see what's going on with a larger polling interval.)

The code for this can be found in the example-a.worker namespace.

3. Enqueue a job

In your other terminal window, run this command to enqueue a job:

$ clj -X:examples:example-a example-a.enqueue-jobs/run

It should add a job to the default queue and print the job details:

$ clj -X:examples:example-a example-a.enqueue-jobs/run
Number of jobs in :proletarian/default queue: 0
Number of jobs in proletarian.jobs table: 0
Number of jobs in proletarian.archived_jobs table: 0

Adding new job to :proletarian/default queue:
{:job-id #uuid "b78295d5-9241-45c1-8288-e4cf128d6bea",
 :job-type :example-a.enqueue-jobs/echo,
 :payload {:message "Hello world!",
           :timestamp #inst "2021-01-06T20:43:42.451299Z"}}

You should see this job get picked up by the queue worker process in the other terminal window. You'll see output like this:

:proletarian.worker/handling-job {:job-id #uuid "b78295d5-9241-45c1-8288-e4cf128d6bea", :job-type :example-a.enqueue-jobs/echo, :attempt 1, :worker-thread-id 1, :proletarian.worker/queue-worker-id proletarian[:proletarian/default]}
Running job :example-a.enqueue-jobs/echo. Payload:
{:message "Hello world!", :timestamp #inst "2021-01-06T20:43:42.451Z"}
:proletarian.worker/job-finished {:job-id #uuid "b78295d5-9241-45c1-8288-e4cf128d6bea", :job-type :example-a.enqueue-jobs/echo, :attempt 1, :worker-thread-id 1, :proletarian.worker/queue-worker-id proletarian[:proletarian/default]}

Run the same command again to see the miracle unfold one more time.

Things to note:

• The job is assigned a job-id UUID. You shouldn't need to keep track of this id, it's just the unique id of this job.
• The job has a :job-type, which is a Clojure keyword. This keyword is what determines which handler function Proletarian will invoke for this job. You need to implement the proletarian.job/handle-job! multimethod for each job type you want to handle. A common practice is to use a namespaced keyword with shorthand notation for the current namespace (the double colon: ::) as your job type. In this example we use ::echo in the code, which expands to :example-a.enqueue-jobs/echo, as seen in the output above.
• The payload is serialized using Transit, and stored in a TEXT column in the database. Proletarian de-serializes the payload and passes it to the handler. The serializer is configurable - just implement the proletarian.protocols/Serializer protocol and pass an instance of this under the :proletarian/serializer option to proletarian.job/enqueue! and proletarian.worker/queue-worker-controller.