Re: RFC: pgAgent Scheduler Design

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Miha Radej [mailto:miha(dot)radej(at)siix(dot)com]
> Sent: 08 March 2005 06:17
> To: Dave Page; pgadmin-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [pgadmin-hackers] RFC: pgAgent Scheduler Design
>
> - if a job does not execute, i'd like to set an option whether to be
> executed as soon as possible, delayed or nor, or if execution
> should be
> held until the next planned time.

You mean the run one missed job and then go back to normal as Andreas
suggested, or run *all* missed instances?

> - should this be the last planned execution of a job, ie. a job
> executing monday to friday and then never again, i'd like to
> be able to
> set an option in such special case: if the execution was held and the
> last execution was held also, it'd be great to be able to set
> an option
> like the above paragraph for such exceptional cases.

OK.

> - an option whether to execute jobs several times or only
> once, would be
> handy. for example, if i have a daily job and have an
> incrementing value
> set to n, i'd expect it to be n+5 5 days later. sometimes, when, say,
> refreshing data in a table, multiple executions aren't
> necessary, so a
> checkbox or something would be nice imo.

There will be a job end date/time that will allow you to do this -
specify the schedule, and then optionally specify the date/time that the
job will stop running after. My previous proposal included a counter,
but that's surprisingly difficult to handle when jobs get missed.

> - if it should happen that something is set to execute periodically
> every 10 minutes but takes more than that to execute, is it
> possible to
> set it either to wait until the first job is done and only
> then launch
> the next run, or to allow overlapping jobs, ie. execute a job at the
> next specified time, regardless if the previous run hasn't
> finished yet.

Only one instance of a job can run at a time in the current scheme.
Currently, when the job finishes, it triggers the calculation of the
next run time - as it stands, that will always be after the current
time.

> - and another feature request: is it possible to set an
> execution time
> frame, from and to a certain date and have a job executed at random
> times (with a possibility of specifying the number or range
> (ie. between
> 5 and 9) of executions) within that specified time frame? right now i
> have a script that does sth. like that. err, this is a rather exotic
> request, i know, but it is something i could use so i just
> had to write
> this :)

Actually that's a pretty neat idea, and one that I would probably use as
well. I don't think I'll include anything like it in v1 (I don't want
the feature list getting too big at this point), but v2....

> i hope i stayed in context and my opinion helps.

Absolutely - the more opinions we get the better (within reason of
course!!)

> now i'll just crawl
> back into my cave and just read the postings here again :)

:-)

Thanks, Dave.