Crunz

Install a cron job once and for all, manage the rest from the code.

Crunz is a framework-agnostic package to schedule periodic tasks (cron jobs) in PHP using a fluent API.

Crunz is capable of executing any kind of executable command as well as PHP closures.

To install it:

composer require crunzphp/crunz

If the installation is successful, a command-line utility named crunz is symlinked to the vendor/bin directory of your project.

The idea is very simple: instead of installing cron jobs in a crontab file, we define them in one or several PHP files, by using the Crunz interface.

Here's a basic example:

<?php
// tasks/backupTasks.php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();
$task = $schedule->run('cp project project-bk');       
$task->daily();

return $schedule;

To run the tasks, you only need to install an ordinary cron job (a crontab entry) which runs every minute, and delegates the responsibility to Crunz' event runner:

* * * * * cd /project && vendor/bin/crunz schedule:run

The command schedule:run is responsible for collecting all the PHP task files and run the tasks which are due.

Task files resemble crontab files. Just like crontab files they can contain one or more tasks.

Normally we create our task files in the tasks/ directory within the project's root directory.

By default, Crunz assumes all the task files reside in the tasks/ directory within the project's root directory.

There are two ways to specify the source directory: 1) Configuration file 2) As a parameter to the event runner command.

We can explicitly set the source path by passing it to the event runner as a parameter:

* * * * * cd /project && vendor/bin/crunz schedule:run /path/to/tasks/directory

In the terminal, change the directory to your project's root directory and run the following commands:

mkdir tasks && cd tasks
nano GeneralTasks.php

Then, add a task as below:

<?php
// tasks/FirstTasks.php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();

$task = $schedule->run('cp project project-bk'); 
$task
    ->daily()
    ->description('Create a backup of the project directory.');

// ...

// IMPORTANT: You must return the schedule object
return $schedule; 

There are some conventions for creating a task file, which you need to follow. First of all, the filename should end with Tasks.php unless we change this via the configuration settings.

In addition to that, we must return the instance of Schedule class at the end of each file, otherwise, all the tasks inside the file will be skipped by the event runner.

Since Crunz scans the tasks directory recursively, we can either put all the tasks in one file or across different files (or directories) based on their usage. This behavior helps us have a well organized tasks directory.

We can run any command or script by using run(). This method accepts two arguments: the command to be executed, and the command options (as an associative array) if there's any.

<?php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' backup.php', ['--destination' => 'path/to/destination']);
$task
    ->everyMinute()
    ->description('Copying the project directory');

return $schedule;

In the above example, --destination is an option supported by backup.php script.

We can also write to a closure instead of a command:

<?php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();

$x = 12;
$task = $schedule->run(function() use ($x) { 
   // Do some cool stuff in here 
});

$task
    ->everyMinute()
    ->description('Copying the project directory');

return $schedule;

There are a variety of ways to specify when and how often a task should run. We can combine these methods together to get our desired frequencies.

There are a group of methods which specify a unit of time (bigger than minute) as frequency. They usually end with ly suffix, as in hourly(), daily(), weekly, monthly(), quarterly(), and yearly .

All the events scheduled with this set of methods happen at the beginning of that time unit. For example weekly() will run the event on Sundays, and monthly() will run on the first day of each month.

The task below will run daily at midnight (start of the daily time period).

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' backup.php');    
$task->daily();
// ...

Here's another one, which runs on the first day of each month.

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task->monthly();
// ...

To schedule a one-off tasks, you may use on() method like this:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php'); 
$task->on('13:30 2016-03-01');
// ...

The above task will run on the first of march 2016 at 01:30 pm.

On() accepts any date format parsed by PHP's strtotime function.

To specify the time of a task we use at() method:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php'); 
$task
    ->daily()
    ->at('13:30');
// ...

If we only pass a time to the on() method, it will have the same effect as using at()

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');   
$task
    ->daily()
    ->on('13:30');
         
// is the sames as
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');       
$task
    ->daily()
    ->at('13:30');
// ...

We can combine the "Unit of Time" methods eg. daily(), monthly() with the at() or on() constraint in a single statement if we wish.

The following task will be run every hour at the 15th minute

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' feedmecookie.php'); 
$task
    ->hourlyAt('15');
// ...

hourlyOn('15') could have been used instead of hourlyAt('15') with the same result

The following task will be run Monday at 13:30

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' startofwork.php'); 
$task
    ->weeklyOn(1,'13:30');
// ...

Sunday is considered day 0 of the week.

If we wished for the task to run on Tuesday (day 2 of the week) at 09:00 we would have used:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' startofwork.php'); 
$task
    ->weeklyOn(2,'09:00');
// ...

In a crontab entry, we can not easily specify a task's lifetime (the period of time when the task is active). However, it's been made easy in Crunz:

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->from('12:30 2016-03-04')
    ->to('04:55 2016-03-10');
 //       

Or alternatively we can use the between() method to accomplish the same result:

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->between('12:30 2016-03-04', '04:55 2016-03-10');

 //       

If we don't specify the date portion, the task will be active every day but only within the specified duration:

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
     ->everyFiveMinutes()
     ->between('12:30', '04:55');

 //       

The above task runs every five minutes between 12:30 pm and 4:55 pm every day.

An example of restricting a task from running only during a certain range of minutes each hour can be achieved as follows:

<?php
//

$hour = date('H');
$startminute = $hour.':05';
$endminute = $hour.':15';

$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
     ->hourly()
     ->between($startminute, $endminute);

 //       

The above task runs every hour between minutes 5 to 15

Crunz also provides a set of methods which specify a certain day in the week.

• mondays()
• tuesdays()
• wednesdays()
• thursdays()
• fridays()
• saturdays()
• sundays()
• weekdays()

These methods have been designed to be used as a constraint and should not be used alone. The reason is that weekday methods just modify the Day of Week field of a cron job expression.

Consider the following example:

<?php
// Cron equivalent:  * * * * 1
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' startofwork.php');
$task->mondays();

At first glance, the task seems to run every Monday, but since it only modifies the "day of week" field of the cron job expression, the task runs every minute on Mondays.

This is the correct way of using weekday methods:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' startofwork.php');
$task    
    ->mondays()
    ->at('13:30');

// ...

(An easier to read alternative with a similar result ->weeklyOn(0,'13:30') to that shown in a previously example above)

We can also do the scheduling the old way, just like we do in a crontab file:

<?php

$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task->cron('30 12 * 5-6,9 Mon,Fri');

Crunz's methods are not limited to the ready-made methods explained. We can also set individual fields to compose custom frequencies similar to how a classic crontab would composed them. These methods either accept an array of values, or list arguments separated by commas:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task       
    ->minute(['1-30', 45, 55])
    ->hour('1-5', 7, 8)
    ->dayOfMonth(12, 15)
    ->month(1);

Or:

<?php
// ...
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->minute('30')
    ->hour('13')
    ->month([1,2])
    ->dayofWeek('Mon', 'Fri', 'Sat');

// ...

Based on our use cases, we can choose and combine the proper set of methods, which are easier to use.

Another thing that we cannot do very easily in a traditional crontab file is to make conditions for running the tasks. This has been made easy by when() and skip() methods.

Consider the following code:

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->between('12:30 2016-03-04', '04:55 2016-03-10')
    ->when(function() {
        if ((bool) (time() % 2)) {
            return true;
        }
        
        return false;
    });

Method when() accepts a callback, which must return TRUE for the task to run. This is really useful when we need to check our resources before performing a resource-hungry task.

We can also skip a task under certain conditions, by using skip() method. If the passed callback returns TRUE, the task will be skipped.

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->between('12:30 2016-03-04', '04:55 2016-03-10')
    ->skip(function() {
        if ((bool) (time() % 2)) {
            return true;
        }
        
        return false;  
    });

 //       

We can use these methods several times for a single task. They are evaluated sequentially.

You can use the in() method to change directory before running a command:

<?php

// ...

$task = $schedule->run('./deploy.sh');
$task
    ->in('/home')
    ->weekly()
    ->sundays()
    ->at('12:30')
    ->appendOutputTo('/var/log/backup.log');

// ...

return $schedule;

Crunz runs the scheduled events in parallel (in separate processes), so all the events which have the same frequency of execution, will run at the same time asynchronously. To achieve this, Crunz utilizes the symfony/Process library for running the tasks in sub-processes.

If the execution of a task lasts until the next interval or even beyond that, we say that the same instances of a task are overlapping. In some cases, this is a not a problem. But there are times, when these tasks are modifying database data or files, which might cause unexpected behaviors, or even data loss.

To prevent critical tasks from overlapping each other, Crunz provides a locking mechanism through preventOverlapping() method, which, ensures no task runs if the previous instance is already running.

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->preventOverlapping();
 //       

By default, crunz uses file based locking (if no parameters are passed to preventOverlapping). For alternative lock mechanisms, crunz uses the symfony/lock component that provides lock mechanisms with various stores. To use this component, you can pass a store to the preventOverlapping() method. In the following example, the file based FlockStore is used to provide an alternative lock file path.

<?php

use Symfony\Component\Lock\Store\FlockStore;

$store = new FlockStore(__DIR__ . '/locks');
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->preventOverlapping($store);

Cron jobs usually have outputs, which is normally emailed to the owner of the crontab file, or the user(s) set by the MAILTO environment variable inside the crontab file.

We can also redirect the standard output to a physical file using > or >> operators:

* * * * * /command/to/run >> /var/log/crons/cron.log

This kind of output logging has been automated in Crunz. To automatically send each event's output to a log file, we can set log_output and output_log_file options in the configuration file accordingly:

# Configuration settings

## ...
log_output:      true
output_log_file: /var/log/crunz.log
## ...

This will send the events' output (if executed successfully) to /var/log/crunz.log file. However, we need to make sure we are permitted to write to the respective file.

If we need to log the outputs on an event-basis, we can use appendOutputTo() or sendOutputTo() methods like this:

<?php
//
$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->appendOutputTo('/var/log/crunz/emails.log');

 //       

Method appendOutputTo() appends the output to the specified file. To override the log file with new data after each run, we use saveOutputTo() method.

It is also possible to send the errors as emails to a group of recipients by setting email_output and mailer settings in the configuration file.

Crunz makes error handling easy by logging and also allowing you add a set of callbacks in case of an error.

You can set as many callbacks as needed to run in case of an error:

<?php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();

$task = $schedule->run('command/to/run');
$task->everyFiveMinutes();

$schedule
->onError(function() {
   // Send mail
})
->onError(function() {
   // Do something else
});

return $schedule;

If there's an error the two defined callbacks will be executed.

To log the possible errors during each run, we can set log_error and error_log_file settings in the configuration file as below:

# Configuration settings

# ...
log_errors:      true
errors_log_file: /var/log/error.log
# ...

As a result, if the execution of an event is unsuccessful for some reasons, the error message is appended to the specified error log file. Each entry provides useful information including the time it happened, the event description, the executed command which caused the error, and the error message itself.

It is also possible to send the errors as emails to a group of recipients by setting email_error and mailer settings in the configuration file.

To use your own logger create class implementing \Crunz\Application\Service\LoggerFactoryInterface, for example:

<?php

namespace Vendor\Package;

use Crunz\Application\Service\ConfigurationInterface;
use Crunz\Application\Service\LoggerFactoryInterface;
use Psr\Log\AbstractLogger;
use Psr\Log\LoggerInterface;

final class MyEchoLoggerFactory implements LoggerFactoryInterface
{
    public function create(ConfigurationInterface $configuration): LoggerInterface
    {
        return new class extends AbstractLogger {
            /** @inheritDoc */
            public function log(
                $level,
                $message,
                array $context = array()
            ) {
                echo "crunz.{$level}: {$message}";   
            }
        };
    }
}

then use this class name in config:

# ./crunz.yml file
 
logger_factory: 'Vendor\Package\MyEchoLoggerFactory'

Done.

There are times when we want to do some kind of operations before and after an event. This is possible by attaching pre-process and post-process callbacks to the respective event.

To do this, we use before() and after() on both Event and Schedule objects, meaning we can have pre and post hooks on an event-basis as well as schedule basis. The hooks bind to schedule will run before all events, and after all the events are finished.

<?php

use Crunz\Schedule;

$schedule = new Schedule();

$task = $schedule->run(PHP_BINARY . ' email.php');
$task
    ->everyFiveMinutes()
    ->before(function() { 
        // Do something before the task runs
    })
    ->before(function() { 
        // Do something else
    })
    ->after(function() {
        // After the task is run
    });
 
$schedule
    ->before(function () {
       // Do something before all events
    })
    ->after(function () {
       // Do something after all events are finished
    })
    ->before(function () {
       // Do something before all events
    });

We might need to use these methods as many times we need by chaining them.

Post-execution callbacks are only called if the execution of the event has been successful.

We've already used a few of crunz commands like schedule:run and publish:config.

To see all the valid options and arguments of crunz, we can run the following command:

vendor/bin/crunz --help

One of these commands is crunz schedule:list, which lists the defined tasks (in collected *.Tasks.php files) in a tabular format.

vendor/bin/crunz schedule:list

+---+---------------+-------------+--------------------+
| # | Task          | Expression  | Command to Run     |
+---+---------------+-------------+--------------------+
| 1 | Sample Task   | * * * * 1 * | command/to/execute |
+---+---------------+-------------+--------------------+

By default, list is in text format, but format can be changed by --format option.

List in json format, command:

vendor/bin/crunz schedule:list --format json

will output:

[
    {
        "number": 1,
        "task": "Sample Task",
        "expression": "* * * * 1",
        "command": "command/to/execute"
    }
]

While in development it may be useful to force run all tasks regardless of their actual run time, which can be achieved by adding --force to schedule:run:

vendor/bin/crunz schedule:run --force

To force run a single task, use the schedule:list command above to determine the Task number and run as follows:

vendor/bin/crunz schedule:run --task 1 --force

There is also a useful command named make:task, which generates a task file skeleton with all the defaults, so we won't have to write them from scratch. We can modify the output file later based on our requirements.

For example, to create a task, which runs /var/www/script.php every hour on Mondays, we run the following command:

vendor/bin/crunz make:task exampleOne --run scripts.php --in /var/www --frequency everyHour --constraint mondays
Where do you want to save the file? (Press enter for the current directory)

When we run this command, Crunz will ask about the location we want to save the file. By default, it is our source tasks directory.

As a result, the event is defined in a file named exampleOneTasks.php within the specified tasks directory.

To see if the event has been created successfully, we list the events:

crunz schedule:list

+---+------------------+-------------+----------------+
| # | Task             | Expression  | Command to Run |
+---+------------------+-------------+----------------+
| 1 | Task description | 0 * * * 1 * | scripts.php    |
+---+------------------+-------------+----------------+

To see all the options of make:task command with all the defaults, we run this:

vendor/bin/crunz make:task --help

To show basic information about task run:

vendor/bin/crunz task:debug 1

Above command should output something like this:

+----------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Debug information for task '1'                           |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Command to run       | php -v                            |
| Description          | Inner task                        |
| Prevent overlapping  | No                                |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Cron expression      | * * * * *                         |
| Comparisons timezone | Europe/Warsaw (from config)       |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Example run dates                                        |
| #1                   | 2020-03-08 09:27:00 Europe/Warsaw |
| #2                   | 2020-03-08 09:28:00 Europe/Warsaw |
| #3                   | 2020-03-08 09:29:00 Europe/Warsaw |
| #4                   | 2020-03-08 09:30:00 Europe/Warsaw |
| #5                   | 2020-03-08 09:31:00 Europe/Warsaw |
+----------------------+-----------------------------------+

There are a few configuration options provided by Crunz in YAML format. To modify the configuration settings, it is highly recommended to have your own copy of the configuration file, instead of modifying the original one.

To create a copy of the configuration file, first we need to publish the configuration file:

/project/vendor/bin/crunz publish:config
The configuration file was generated successfully

As a result, a copy of the configuration file will be created within our project's root directory.

The configuration file looks like this:

# Crunz Configuration Settings

# This option defines where the task files and
# directories reside.
# The path is relative to the project's root directory,
# where the Crunz is installed (Trailing slashes will be ignored).
source: tasks

# The suffix is meant to target the task files inside the ":source" directory.
# Please note if you change this value, you need
# to make sure all the existing tasks files are renamed accordingly.
suffix: Tasks.php

# Timezone is used to calculate task run time
# This option is very important and not setting it is deprecated
# and will result in exception in 2.0 version.
timezone: ~

# This option define which timezone should be used for log files
# If false, system default timezone will be used
# If true, the timezone in config file that is used to calculate task run time will be used
timezone_log: false

# By default the errors are not logged by Crunz
# You may set the value to true for logging the errors
log_errors: false

# This is the absolute path to the errors' log file
# You need to make sure you have the required permission to write to this file though.
errors_log_file:

# By default the output is not logged as they are redirected to the
# null output.
# Set this to true if you want to keep the outputs
log_output: false

# This is the absolute path to the global output log file
# The events which have dedicated log files (defined with them), won't be
# logged to this file though.
output_log_file:

# By default line breaks in logs aren't allowed.
# Set the value to true to allow them.
log_allow_line_breaks: false

# By default empty context arrays are shown in the log.
# Set the value to true to remove them.
log_ignore_empty_context: false

# This option determines whether the output should be emailed or not.
email_output: false

# This option determines whether the error messages should be emailed or not.
email_errors: false

# Global Swift Mailer settings
#
mailer:
    # Possible values: smtp, mail, and sendmail
    transport: smtp
    recipients:
    sender_name:
    sender_email:


# SMTP settings
#
smtp:
    host:
    port:
    username:
    password:
    encryption:

As you can see there are a few options like source which is used to specify the source tasks directory. The other options are used for error/output logging/emailing purposes.

Each time we run Crunz commands, it will look into the project's root directory to see if there's any user-modified configuration file. If the configuration file doesn't exists, it will use the one shipped with the package.

You can change the base cache directory of crunz by setting the CRUNZ_BASE_CACHE_DIR environment variable. The default base cache directory is \sys_get_temp_dir(). The subdirectory .crunz is always added to the base cache directory.

The following environment flags should be used only while in development. Typical end-users do not need to, and should not, change them.

Flag used to enable/disable container debug mode, useful only for development. Enabled by default in docker-compose.

Flag used to enable/disable Crunz deprecation handler, useful only for integration tests. Disabled by default for tests.

You can support further Crunz development by GitHub.

Bug fixes and readme changes should target 3.8, new features should target 3.9.

Please submit all issues and questions using GitHub issues and I will try to help you.

• PabloKowalczyk
• Reza Lavarian
• All Contributors

Crunz is free software distributed under the terms of the MIT license.