[Backgroundrb-devel] Getting started

[hemant]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 7:11 AM, Richard Everhart
<rich.everhart at gmail.com> wrote:
> Changing 'class' to 'worker' in new_worker seemed to get things going.
>   I can see that after new_worker is called the worker's create method
>  is then called.  This only seems to work once. After the first time, I
>  get the following error:
>
>  You have a nil object when you didn't expect it!
>  The error occurred while evaluating nil.send_request
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/framework/packet_master.rb:43:in
>  `ask_worker'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/server/master_worker.rb:76:in
>  `process_work'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/server/master_worker.rb:34:in
>  `receive_data'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/lib/../framework/bin_parser.rb:29:in
>  `call'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/lib/../framework/bin_parser.rb:29:in
>  `extract'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/server/master_worker.rb:30:in
>  `receive_data'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/framework/core.rb:195:in
>  `read_external_socket'
>  /home/reverhart/drb_test/vendor/plugins/backgroundrb/framework/core.rb:187:in
>  `handle_external_messages'
>  [...snip...]
>
>  Eventually, what I would really like to do is return a value back to
>  the browser.  send_request is documented to do this but the browser
>  just hangs and I really can't tell if the the worker method (do_work
>  in this is being executed).  While the work is being executed by the
>  worker I'd like to display a progress bar or a busy indicator, both of
>  which I've seen examples.  But, it seems that the do_work method is
>  never called, even when calling ask_work, which is not supposed to
>  block.
>
>  I have not tried out the latest version so I'm not sure if that will
>  change things.  Thanks a lot!
>

I wanted to ask, are you sure you want to create new workers on each
request? Can't you handle all the requests in the same instance of
worker. Also, send_request blocks until bdrb returns a response and
thats why your browser is hung.

A better approach is to use register_status in your worker and invoke
ask_status in rails code. Again, please read the README carefully from
start to beginning.

Also, use following links for debugging:

http://gnufied.org/2008/02/12/backgroundrb-best-practises/
http://www.johnyerhot.com/2008/02/11/debugging-backgroundrb/