class Webgen::Task

Namespace for all tasks.

About

Tasks provide the main entrance point for doing things with a website, like creating it, generating it, and much more.

Implementing a task

A task object only needs to respond to one method called call which takes the website as first parameter and may take an arbitrary number of additional arguments. The method should return true if the task was executed sucessfully or else false.

Due to this there are basically two ways to implement a task since: Either as a class with a class method called call. Or as a Proc object.

If the task needs to be configured to work correctly, use additional parameters or configuration options.

The task has to be registered so that webgen knows about it, see register for more information.

Sample Task

The following sample task just outputs the value of its configuration option:

class OutputTask

  def self.call(website, options)
    website.logger.vinfo("The output task configuration value follows")
    website.logger.info(website.config['task.output.option'])
    true
  end

end

website.config.define_option('task.output.option', nil, 'The configuration option')
website.ext.task.register OutputTask, :name => 'output'

Public Class Methods

new(website)

Create a new task manager for the given website.

Calls superclass method Webgen::ExtensionManager::new

Public Instance Methods

data(name)

Return the task data for the given task.

execute(name, *options)

Execute the task identified by the given name.

register(klass, options={}, &block)

Register a task.

The parameter klass can either be a String containing the name of a class/module (which has to respond to :call) or an object that responds to :call. If the class is located under this namespace, only the class name without the hierarchy part is needed, otherwise the full class/module name including parent module/class names is needed.

Instead of registering an object that responds to :call, you can also provide a block.

Options:

:name

The name for the task. If not set, it defaults to the snake-case version of the class name (without the hierarchy part). It should only contain letters.

:data

Associates arbitrary data with the task object. This data can be retrieved using the data method.

Examples:

task.register('CreateWebsite')     # registers Webgen::Task::CreateWebsite

task.register('::CreateWebsite')   # registers CreateWebsite !!!

task.register('doit') do |website|
  # task commands go here
end