Laravel Async

About it

A package provide an easy way to run code asynchronous and parallel base on Spatie Async wrapper for Laravel application.

Installation

Require Laravel Async using Composer:

composer require vxm/laravel-async

The package will automatically register itself.

You can publish the config-file (optional) with:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="VXM\Async\AsyncServiceProvider" --tag="config"

This is the contents of the published config file:

return [
    /*
     * The PHP binary will be use in async processes.
     */
    'withBinary' => PHP_BINARY,

    /*
     * Maximum concurrency async processes.
     */
    'concurrency' => 20,

    /*
     * Async process timeout.
     */
    'timeout' => 15,

    /*
     * Sleep (micro-second) time when waiting async processes.
     */
    'sleepTime' => 50000,

    /*
     * Default output length of async processes.
     */
    'defaultOutputLength' => 1024 * 10,

    /*
     * An autoload script to boot composer autoload and Laravel application.
     * Default null meaning using an autoload of this package.
     */
    'autoload' => null,
];

Usage

Run async code

After install, now you can try run async code via Async facade:

use VXM\Async\AsyncFacade as Async;

for ($i = 1; $i < 20; $i++) {
    Async::run(function () use ($i) {
        sleep(1);

        return $i;
    });
}

var_dump(implode(', ', Async::wait()));

// Output value may be like:
// string(65) "5, 2, 1, 14, 4, 6, 7, 8, 19, 16, 12, 18, 13, 3, 10, 9, 11, 17, 15"

An async job can be callable class, anonymous function or Laravel callback:

use VXM\Async\AsyncFacade as Async;

// run with anonymous function:
Async::run(function() {
    // Do a thing
});

// run with class@method
Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class@handle');

// call default `handle` method if method not set.
Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class');

You can run multiple job one time and waiting until all done.

use VXM\Async\AsyncFacade as Async;

Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobA');
Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobB');
Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobC');
Async::run('Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobD');

// Another way:

Async::batchRun(
    'Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobA',
    'Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobB',
    'Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobC',
    'Your\AsyncJobs\Class@jobD'
);

$results = Async::wait(); // result return from jobs above

Event listeners

When creating asynchronous processes, you can add the following event hooks:

use VXM\Async\AsyncFacade as Async;

Async::run(function () {

    return 123;
}, [
    'success' => function ($output) { 
        // `$output` of job in this case is `123`.
    },
    'timeout' => function () { 
        // A job took too long to finish.
    },
    'error' => function (\Throwable $exception) {
        // When an exception is thrown from job, it's caught and passed here.
    },
]);

// Another way:
Async::run('AsyncJobClass@handleMethod', [
    'success' => 'AsyncJobEventListener@handleSuccess',
    'timeout' => 'AsyncJobEventListener@handleTimeout',
    'error' => 'AsyncJobEventListener@handleError'
]);

Async::batchRun(
    ['AsyncJobClassA@handleMethod', ['success' => 'AsyncJobEventListenerA@handleSuccess']],
    ['AsyncJobClassB@handleMethod', ['success' => 'AsyncJobEventListenerB@handleSuccess']],
    ['AsyncJobClassC@handleMethod', ['success' => 'AsyncJobEventListenerC@handleSuccess']]
);

Working with complex job

When working with complex job you may want to setup more before it run (ex: job depend on Eloquent model). This package provide you an Artisan command make:async-job to generate a job template. By default, all of the async jobs for your application are stored in the app/AsyncJobs directory. If the app/AsyncJobs directory doesn't exist, it will be created. You may generate a new async job using the Artisan CLI:

php artisan make:async-job MyJob

After created it, you need to prepare your job structure, example:

namespace App\AsyncJobs;

use App\MyModel;
use VXM\Async\Invocation;
use App\MyHandleDependency;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;

class MyJob
{

    use Invocation;
    use SerializesModels;

    protected $model;
    
    /**
     * Create a new job instance.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function __construct(MyModel $model)
    {
        $this->model = $model;
    }

    /**
     * Execute the job.
     *
     * @return void
     */
    public function handle(MyHandleDependency $dependency)
    {
        //
    }
}

In this example, note that we were able to pass an Eloquent model directly into the async job's constructor. Because of the SerializesModels trait that the job is using, Eloquent models will be gracefully serialized and unserialized when the job is processing. If your async job accepts an Eloquent model in its constructor, only the identifier for the model will be serialized onto the queue. When the job is actually handled, the system will automatically re-retrieve the full model instance from the database. It's all totally transparent to your application and prevents issues that can arise from serializing full Eloquent model instances.

The handle method is called when the job is processed in async process. Note that we are able to type-hint dependencies on the handle method of the job. The Laravel service container automatically injects these dependencies.

If you would like to take total control over how the container injects dependencies into the handle method, you may use the container's bindMethod method. The bindMethod method accepts a callback which receives the job and the container. Within the callback, you are free to invoke the handle method however you wish. Typically, you should call this method from a service provider:

use App\AsyncJobs\MyJob;
use App\MyHandleDependency;

$this->app->bindMethod(MyJob::class.'@handle', function ($job, $app) {
    return $job->handle($app->make(MyHandleDependency::class));
});

Now run it asynchronously:

use VXM\Async\AsyncFacade as Async;
use App\MyModel;
use App\AsyncJobs\MyJob;

$model = App\MyModel::find(1);

Async::run(new MyJob($model));

// or batch run with multiple models:

$model2 = App\MyModel::find(2);

Async::batchRun(
    new MyJob($model),
    new MyJob($model2)
);

Compare with queue

You can feel this package look like queue and thing why not using queue?

Queue is a good choice for common async jobs. This package using in cases end-user need to get response in single request but it's a heavy things need to using several processes for calculation or IO heavy operations. And it no need to run a queue listener.