Aaron (random cron)

Randomize the execution of tasks

Installing

$ gem install aaron

Usage

To use Aaron simply create a aaron.rb file in your home directory (~/aaron.rb).

The aaron.rb file is the config file for Aaron.

Every task begins with every followed by an interval (or range) followed by the thing to execute. An example aaron.rb file is below.

# Since the arron.rb file is ruby #s can be used for comments

# You can specify an range that you want a task to be ran between.  A random time
# within that range will be used.
every 20.minutes.to(30.minutes) { File.write("~/test", (File.read("~/test").to_i || 1) + 1) }

# The block passed to every is what will be ran

# If you don't want to you don't have to specify a range.  Here something_awesome
# will happen every 20 minutes
every 20.minutes do
  something_awesome
end

# To make executing simple shell command easier you can use this syntax below.
# Here the shell command ~/repos/orange-soapstone/bin/orange-soapstone will be
# ran between every 4 and 7 hours.
every 4.hours.to(7.hours), exec { "~/repos/orange-soapstone/bin/orange-soapstone" }
# Note the comma right   ^ there.

# When using exec you're passing a block to the exec method which converts it to
# A Proc when sending it to every.  This means it needs to be sent as an argument
# and not a block.  Hence the comma.

Specifying ranges

It is possible to pass just a simple range to every. However some helper methods have been added to the Fixnum class to make specifying the range of time you want a task executed in.

The to method

The to method takes a Fixnum and returns a range starting at self and ending at the parameter passed to it.

1.to 2 # => (1..2)

Time helper methods

You may have noticed some helper methods have been added to help specify units of time. These methods are

• second
• minute
• hour
• day
• week

and their plural versions (i.e. seconds) also work too.

TODO

• Better daemonization
• Allow the selection of alternate config files