Problem
How to implement a method with Action Job in Ruby on Rails
Introduction
In Ruby on Rails, efficient background processing is crucial for handling time-consuming tasks without affecting the responsiveness of the application. Action Job, introduced in Rails 4.2, is a powerful feature that allows you to perform background processing seamlessly. It provides a clean and straightforward way to offload resource-intensive tasks to background workers, ensuring a smooth user experience.
By using Action Job, you can execute tasks asynchronously, improving the performance and scalability of your Rails application. This becomes especially useful when dealing with operations like sending emails, generating reports, processing large datasets, or interacting with external APIs, which would otherwise block the main thread and slow down the application.
Situation
Let's consider a store called "AC Store".
A user chooses some products and adds them to the cart. In the end, when the user completes the checkout, they should receive an email.
In order to complete the checkout, the user needs to proceed with the payment. Let's create a method called perform_payment with Action Job.
Steps
Implement the method
The first step is to implement the method to be processed asynchronously.
In my example, my method is in the order class. This is a super simplified version of my class and my method, but this is not going to affect the understanding of the article.
You just need to understand that here is the implementation of the method that you want to use asynchronously.
# app/models/order.rb
class Order < ApplicationRecord
# There is code here
def perform_payment(payment_type_params)
# There is code here
OrderMailer.received(self).deliver_later
end
end
My original method contains logic related to performing the actual payment process.
After the payment process is performed, the line OrderMailer.received(self).deliver_later is invoked. This line triggers the sending of an email using the OrderMailer mailer class, specifically the received email template, which is passed the self object (the current order instance) as an argument.
The deliver_later method is called on the OrderMailer.received(self) expression. This method is provided by Active Job, It queues the email delivery as a background job to be processed asynchronously by the background job system.
The idea of the deliver_later method is to ensure that the email sending process does not block the current execution and is performed separately.
In summary, the perform_payment method in the Order model sends an email queued as a background job because of deliver_later, allowing it to be processed asynchronously.
Create the job
rails generate job perform_payment
As you can see, two files were generated: a job test file and a job file.
By using the generator command, you don't have to manually create the job file and its associated code. It helps you save time and ensures consistency in the job class structure.
After running this command, you will find the perform_payment_job.rb file in the app/jobs directory, and it will contain a skeleton code structure for the job class.
The job file is used to define a specific job class, PerformPaymentJob, that will be responsible for performing payment-related tasks asynchronously.
You can then customize the perform method inside the generated file to implement the specific logic for performing payments asynchronously.
Define the background job
Inside app/jobs/perform_payment_job.rb, insert the following code:
# app/jobs/perform_payment_job.rb
def perform(order, payment_type_params)
order.perform_payment(payment_type_params)
end
The original perform_payment method requires only one argument, which is payment_type_params.
The Active Job perform method requires two arguments: payment_type_params and order.
The perform_payment method is defined within the Order model or an associated class (order.perform_payment), it performs the necessary actions to perform a payment based on the provided payment parameters.
The complete code would be something like the following:
# app/jobs/perform_payment_job.rb
class PerformPaymentJob < ApplicationJob
queue_as :default
def perform(order, payment_type_params)
order.perform_payment(payment_type_params)
end
end
Queue the job
PerformPaymentJob.perform_later(@order, payment_type_params.to_h)
PerformPaymentJob refers to the job class named PerformPaymentJob. This job class is responsible for performing the necessary actions to charge an order.
perform_later is a method provided by Active Job, its idea is to enqueue the job for later execution by the background job system. The perform_later method ensures that the job is processed asynchronously, meaning it will be executed separately from the main request/response cycle.
The instance variable @order is the order object to be charged. It is passed as an argument to the PerformPaymentJob's perform method when the job is executed.
The second parameter is payment_type_params.to_h. payment_type_params is a parameter that contains payment-related information submitted from a form or request.
By calling .to_h on payment_type_params, it converts the parameters into a hash. This hash is then passed as another argument to the PerformPaymentJob's perform method when the job is executed. The specific implementation of how this hash is used in the perform method would be defined within the PerformPaymentJob class.
# app/controllers/orders_controller.rb
def create
@order = Order.new(order_params)
@order.add_line_items_from_cart(@cart)
respond_to do |format|
if @order.save
Cart.destroy(session[:cart_id])
session[:cart_id] = nil
PerformPaymentJob.perform_later(@order, payment_type_params.to_h)
format.html { redirect_to store_index_url, notice: "Thank you for your order" }
format.json { render :show, status: :created, location: @order }
else
format.html { render :new, status: :unprocessable_entity }
format.json { render json: @order.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity }
end
end
end
Test it
YOu should see something like this in your terminal
Be happy
Let's connect
Final thoughts
I hope this article helped you. Let me know if you have any questions.
Your thoughts, suggestions and corrections are more than welcome.
By the way, feel free to drop your suggestions on new blog articles.
Hope to see you next time.