Job queues in Golang

golang_job_queue.md

Golang Workers / Job Queue

A running example of the code from:

• http://marcio.io/2015/07/handling-1-million-requests-per-minute-with-golang
• http://nesv.github.io/golang/2014/02/25/worker-queues-in-go.html

This gist creates a working example from blog post, and a alternate example using simple worker pool.

TLDR: if you want simple and controlled concurrency use a worker pool.

Step 1

Small refactorings made to original code:

• Use non-exported private methods
• Remove global variables
• Bring the flags closer to their usage in main() from where to define flags in program.

Step 2

Simplify the worker queue by removing the Dispatcher.

• Creates workers directly and passes job queue to them

https://gist.github.com/harlow/dbcd639cf8d396a2ab73#file-worker_refactored-go

Run the Application

Boot either the worker_original.go or the worker_refactored.go applications. Use flags to adjust the max_workers and max_queue_size to override the default values.

$ go run worker_original.go -max_workers 5

cURL the application from another terminal window:

$ for i in {1..15}; do curl localhost:8080/work -d name=job$i -d delay=$(expr $i % 9 + 1)s; done

Performance

The test run with Pprof show performance characteristics remain the same between both examples.

worker_original.go

// Original code with Dispatcher
package main

import (
	_ "expvar"
	"flag"
	"fmt"
	"net/http"
	_ "net/http/pprof"
	"os"
	"time"
)

// Job holds the attributes needed to perform unit of work.
type Job struct {
	Name  string
	Delay time.Duration
}

// NewWorker creates takes a numeric id and a channel w/ worker pool.
func NewWorker(id int, workerPool chan chan Job) Worker {
	return Worker{
		id:         id,
		jobQueue:   make(chan Job),
		workerPool: workerPool,
		quitChan:   make(chan bool),
	}
}

type Worker struct {
	id         int
	jobQueue   chan Job
	workerPool chan chan Job
	quitChan   chan bool
}

func (w Worker) start() {
	go func() {
		for {
			// Add my jobQueue to the worker pool.
			w.workerPool <- w.jobQueue

			select {
			case job := <-w.jobQueue:
				// Dispatcher has added a job to my jobQueue.
				fmt.Printf("worker%d: started %s, blocking for %f seconds\n", w.id, job.Name, job.Delay.Seconds())
				time.Sleep(job.Delay)
				fmt.Printf("worker%d: completed %s!\n", w.id, job.Name)
			case <-w.quitChan:
				// We have been asked to stop.
				fmt.Printf("worker%d stopping\n", w.id)
				return
			}
		}
	}()
}

func (w Worker) stop() {
	go func() {
		w.quitChan <- true
	}()
}

// NewDispatcher creates, and returns a new Dispatcher object.
func NewDispatcher(jobQueue chan Job, maxWorkers int) *Dispatcher {
	workerPool := make(chan chan Job, maxWorkers)

	return &Dispatcher{
		jobQueue:   jobQueue,
		maxWorkers: maxWorkers,
		workerPool: workerPool,
	}
}

type Dispatcher struct {
	workerPool chan chan Job
	maxWorkers int
	jobQueue   chan Job
}

func (d *Dispatcher) run() {
	for i := 0; i < d.maxWorkers; i++ {
		worker := NewWorker(i+1, d.workerPool)
		worker.start()
	}

	go d.dispatch()
}

func (d *Dispatcher) dispatch() {
	for {
		select {
		case job := <-d.jobQueue:
			go func() {
				fmt.Printf("fetching workerJobQueue for: %s\n", job.Name)
				workerJobQueue := <-d.workerPool
				fmt.Printf("adding %s to workerJobQueue\n", job.Name)
				workerJobQueue <- job
			}()
		}
	}
}

func requestHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request, jobQueue chan Job) {
	// Make sure we can only be called with an HTTP POST request.
	if r.Method != "POST" {
		w.Header().Set("Allow", "POST")
		w.WriteHeader(http.StatusMethodNotAllowed)
		return
	}

	// Parse the delay.
	delay, err := time.ParseDuration(r.FormValue("delay"))
	if err != nil {
		http.Error(w, "Bad delay value: "+err.Error(), http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Validate delay is in range 1 to 10 seconds.
	if delay.Seconds() < 1 || delay.Seconds() > 10 {
		http.Error(w, "The delay must be between 1 and 10 seconds, inclusively.", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Set name and validate value.
	name := r.FormValue("name")
	if name == "" {
		http.Error(w, "You must specify a name.", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Create Job and push the work onto the jobQueue.
	job := Job{Name: name, Delay: delay}
	jobQueue <- job

	// Render success.
	w.WriteHeader(http.StatusCreated)
}

func main() {
	var (
		maxWorkers   = flag.Int("max_workers", 5, "The number of workers to start")
		maxQueueSize = flag.Int("max_queue_size", 100, "The size of job queue")
		port         = flag.String("port", "8080", "The server port")
	)
	flag.Parse()

	// Create the job queue.
	jobQueue := make(chan Job, *maxQueueSize)

	// Start the dispatcher.
	dispatcher := NewDispatcher(jobQueue, *maxWorkers)
	dispatcher.run()

	// Start the HTTP handler.
	http.HandleFunc("/work", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
		requestHandler(w, r, jobQueue)
	})
	log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":"+*port, nil))
}

worker_refactored.go

package main

import (
	_ "expvar"
	"flag"
	"fmt"
	"log"
	"net/http"
	_ "net/http/pprof"
	"time"
)

type job struct {
	name     string
	duration time.Duration
}

func doWork(id int, j job) {
	fmt.Printf("worker%d: started %s, working for %f seconds\n", id, j.name, j.duration.Seconds())
	time.Sleep(j.duration)
	fmt.Printf("worker%d: completed %s!\n", w.id, j.name)
}

func requestHandler(jobs chan job, w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	// Make sure we can only be called with an HTTP POST request.
	if r.Method != "POST" {
		w.Header().Set("Allow", "POST")
		w.WriteHeader(http.StatusMethodNotAllowed)
		return
	}

	// Parse the durations.
	duration, err := time.ParseDuration(r.FormValue("delay"))
	if err != nil {
		http.Error(w, "Bad delay value: "+err.Error(), http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Validate delay is in range 1 to 10 seconds.
	if duration.Seconds() < 1 || duration.Seconds() > 10 {
		http.Error(w, "The delay must be between 1 and 10 seconds, inclusively.", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Set name and validate value.
	name := r.FormValue("name")
	if name == "" {
		http.Error(w, "You must specify a name.", http.StatusBadRequest)
		return
	}

	// Create Job and push the work onto the jobCh.
	job := job{name, duration}
	go func() {
		fmt.Printf("added: %s %s\n", job.name, job.duration)
		jobs <- job
	}()

	// Render success.
	w.WriteHeader(http.StatusCreated)
	return
}

func main() {
	var (
		maxQueueSize = flag.Int("max_queue_size", 100, "The size of job queue")
		maxWorkers   = flag.Int("max_workers", 5, "The number of workers to start")
		port         = flag.String("port", "8080", "The server port")
	)
	flag.Parse()

	// create job channel
	jobs := make(chan job, *maxQueueSize)

	// create workers
	for i := 1; i <= *maxWorkers; i++ {
		go func(i int) {
			for j := range jobs {
				doWork(i, j)
			}
		}(i)
	}

	// handler for adding jobs
	http.HandleFunc("/work", func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
		requestHandler(jobs, w, r)
	})
	log.Fatal(http.ListenAndServe(":"+*port, nil))
}

worker_standalone.go

package main

import (
	_ "expvar"
	"fmt"
	"math/rand"
	"sync"
	"time"
)

const maxWorkers = 10

type job struct {
	name     string
	duration time.Duration
}

func doWork(id int, j job) {
	fmt.Printf("worker%d: started %s, working for %fs\n", id, j.name, j.duration.Seconds())
	time.Sleep(j.duration)
	fmt.Printf("worker%d: completed %s!\n", id, j.name)
}

func main() {
	// channel for jobs
	jobs := make(chan job)

	// start workers
    	wg := &sync.WaitGroup{}
    	wg.Add(maxWorkers)
	for i := 1; i <= maxWorkers; i++ {
		go func(i int) {
            		defer wg.Done()
			
			for j := range jobs {
				doWork(i, j)
			}
		}(i)
	}

	// add jobs
	for i := 0; i < 100; i++ {
		name := fmt.Sprintf("job-%d", i)
		duration := time.Duration(rand.Intn(1000)) * time.Millisecond
		fmt.Printf("adding: %s %s\n", name, duration)
		jobs <- job{name, duration}
	}
	close(jobs)

	// wait for workers to complete
	wg.Wait()
}

Thanks good example to learn golang, would be there tests for this code?

Hi,

Thanks for this example code.
I would like to point out an error in the refactored code, at line 21.

There is no variable w. So w.id should be just id.

Hi @harlow

whats the difference in use goroutine or not at this line https://gist.github.com/harlow/dbcd639cf8d396a2ab73#file-worker_refactored-go-L54?

@feliperohdee

I quote the answer from @zerkms

if the jobs channel is not buffered or is full - then if you don't have a goroutine there it would block the whole method
with goroutine though the method returns and sends an http response to the client

Thank u @vardius

👍

func (w Worker) stop() { go func() { w.quitChan <- true }() }

Why worker stop func does not call?

what happen when handler need to know and return job's result if it success or not?