Laravel Queues: An Asynchronous Processing

This article aims to guide you through the process of executing jobs asynchronously using queues and workers in Laravel.

When it comes to web applications and softwares, speed is crucial for a satisfactory user experience. However, certain tasks require more time to complete, such as sending automated emails, importing large data from CSV or excel files or generating complex reports from extensive data sets. These kinds of tasks cannot be performed synchronously. The well-designed web applications utilize such asynchronous processing in the background, which can be performed using a capability provided by Laravel Queues.

Prerequisites:

This article aims to guide you through the process of executing jobs asynchronously using queues and workers in Laravel. Prior to diving in, please ensure that you have PHP, Composer and MySQL installed on your system, and that you are familiar with bootstrapping and initiating a new Laravel project.

The Concept:

Before delving into the code, I would like to describe the concept of asynchronous processing with a real-life analogy. Imagine yourself as the owner of a local grocery shop that accepts orders over the phone and delivers the requested items to customers’ doorsteps.

Now, assume that you receive a phone call from a customer and take a new order. You write this order on the piece of paper. You then proceed to the storeroom, locate the individual products, pack them into a box, and arrange for delivery. In this scenario, you cannot accept any new orders until you have dispatched the current one. This is called synchronous approach. It blocks your ability to handle other tasks until you complete the currently running process at hand.

However, instead of sticking to a synchronous model, you have the option to hire an additional worker for the storeroom. By doing so, you can accept a new order, jot it down on a piece of paper (referred to as a job), and place it in a queue. One of the storeroom workers will pick a job from the queue, assemble the order, and arrange for delivery. Afterwards, the worker will return to the queue, select the next job, and commence its processing. This is called an asynchronous approach. It  allows for a more efficient workflow. While employing extra workers may require additional resources, it enables you to handle more orders without impeding your overall productivity. This, in turn, leads to improved performance and heightened customer satisfaction.

The Basic Implementation:

Now, let’s see how to implement this asynchronous approach of a job, a worker, and a queue in Laravel. To start, create a new Laravel project somewhere on your computer. Open the project in your favourite IDE and update the code for the routes/web.php file as follows:

Route::get('/', function () {

    dispatch(function() {
        sleep(5);
        logger('job done!');
    });

    return view('welcome');
});

The dispatch() helper function in Laravel sends a new job to a queue. Here, a job is regular PHP code in the form of a closure or class. You can also use job classes instead of closures in above code.

To simulate a long-running task, I have added an explicit delay of five seconds using the sleep function in the job closure. Then, I used the logger() helper function to print the line “job done!” in the project’s laravel.log file located at storage/logs/laravel.log.

Now, start the project by running the following command:

php artisan serve

And open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser. You will see the browser loading for five seconds, and then the welcome page will show up. If you check the log file at location storage/logs/laravel.log, you will see the following log entry:

[2021-08-23 14:37:50] local.DEBUG: job done!

This means that the job ran successfully after the five-second delay, but still it is not running asynchronously. It is still blocking the I/O operations as the browser was in a loading state for five seconds. It is because of the QUEUE_CONNECTION variable in the project’s .env file. This variable indicates the connection to be used in the queue service in Laravel. By default, it has been set to sync, which means that Laravel will process all the jobs synchronously.

Asynchronous Approach:

For asynchronous job-processing, you will have to use a different connection. Laravel has provided a pre-configured list of connections inside the config/queue.php file as follows:

'connections' => [

    'sync' => [
        'driver' => 'sync',
    ],

    'database' => [
        'driver' => 'database',
        'table' => 'jobs',
        'queue' => 'default',
        'retry_after' => 90,
        'after_commit' => false,
    ],

    'beanstalkd' => [
        'driver' => 'beanstalkd',
        'host' => 'localhost',
        'queue' => 'default',
        'retry_after' => 90,
        'block_for' => 0,
        'after_commit' => false,
    ],

    'sqs' => [
        'driver' => 'sqs',
        'key' => env('AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID'),
        'secret' => env('AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY'),
        'prefix' => env('SQS_PREFIX', 'https://sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/your-account-id'),
        'queue' => env('SQS_QUEUE', 'default'),
        'suffix' => env('SQS_SUFFIX'),
        'region' => env('AWS_DEFAULT_REGION', 'us-east-1'),
        'after_commit' => false,
    ],

    'redis' => [
        'driver' => 'redis',
        'connection' => 'default',
        'queue' => env('REDIS_QUEUE', 'default'),
        'retry_after' => 90,
        'block_for' => null,
        'after_commit' => false,
    ],
],

You can use any connection except sync,which is used for synchronous job-processing. For this example, we will use the database connection. To update the connection, open the project’s .env file and change the value of QUEUE_CONNECTION to database and save the file.

But, to work with database connection, we have to create a table to maintain our asynchronous jobs. To create the migration for this table, run the following command:

php artisan queue:table

It will generate the migration script for creating the jobs table. Open the newly generated migration script, it will have the following content:

<?php

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    /**
     * Run the migrations.
     */
    public function up(): void
    {
        Schema::create('jobs', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->bigIncrements('id');
            $table->string('queue')->index();
            $table->longText('payload');
            $table->unsignedTinyInteger('attempts');
            $table->unsignedInteger('reserved_at')->nullable();
            $table->unsignedInteger('available_at');
            $table->unsignedInteger('created_at');
        });
    }

    /**
     * Reverse the migrations.
     */
    public function down(): void
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('jobs');
    }
};

Now, run the migration command as follows to create the jobs table in the database:

php artisan migrate

This table will hold all the queued jobs until a worker processes them. Before starting the laravel, clear the project’s log file located at storage/logs/laravel.log and run the following command:

php artisan serve

And open http://127.0.0.1:8000 in your browser. This time, the page will render almost immediately. After waiting for five seconds, if you check the storage/logs/laravel.log file, you’ll find it empty. Because, the above setup will only add the job into the jobs table. But, execution of this job is still pending.

If you look at the jobs table in your database, you’ll see that the framework has pushed a new job to the queue. To execute this job, we have to run the Laravel queue worker process.

Laravel Queue Worker:

A queue worker is a regular process that runs in the background and polls the queue for unprocessed jobs. To start a new worker, execute the following command inside your project directory:

php artisan queue:work

The worker will start and begin processing the unprocessed job immediately. Now, check the storage/logs/laravel.log file. It will display the following logs: 

[2021-08-23 15:30:34][1] Processing: Closure (web.php:18)
[2021-08-23 15:30:39][1] Processed:  Closure (web.php:18)

Note: To process jobs automatically in the future, you’ll have to keep the worker process running.

And that concludes this article. I have covered the basic concepts of how synchronous and asynchronous approach are working and how you can use Laravel Queues to run asynchronous jobs. There are numerous other aspects of queue management that you should familiarize yourself with, such as job uniqueness, handling race conditions, and implementing throttling. It is advisable to begin incorporating queues into your applications and learn through hands-on experience. Additionally, make sure to thoroughly explore the official documentation on Laravel Queues. If you have any questions or concerns about any of the concepts presented in this article, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, or GitHub. Until the next article, stay safe and continue your learning journey.

Laravel order by relation column with example

Some examples that demonstrate the usage of Laravel’s orderBy method with relationship columns, which can be applied in Laravel versions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

In this post, we focus on examples to use Laravel order by relation column. There are many different ways to achieve it.

Below are some examples that demonstrate the usage of Laravel‘s orderBy method with relationship columns. These examples can be applied in Laravel versions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Example 1: Ordering by a BelongsTo Relationship Column

Consider the scenario where you have a "User" model that belongs to a "Role" model. You can use the orderBy method to sort the users based on the role name in ascending order.

$users = User::with(['role' => function ($q) {
    $q->orderBy('name');
}])->get();

You can use the same code for descending order by adding 'desc' argument to orderBy method as follows,

$users = User::with(['role' => function ($q) {
    $q->orderBy('name', 'desc');
}])->get();

For above example to work properly, you have to define belongsTo relationship of "Role" model inside the "User" model as follows,

public function role(): BelongsTo
{
    return $this->belongsTo(Role::class, 'role_id', 'id');
}

Example 2: Using inner join with relation table

For above scenario, where “User” model that belongs to “Role” model, you can use join method to perform user sorting based on role name as follows,

$users = User::select('*')
                 ->join('roles', 'users.role_id', '=', 'roles.id')
                 ->orderBy('roles.name', 'asc');

As above example, you need to replace the second argument of orderBy method to 'desc' for sort records in descending order. There is no need of any relationship required for this query.

Example 3: Using sortBy() and sortByDesc() methods

You can use sortBy() and sortByDesc() methods to order the records for the same scenario as follows,

$users = User::get()->sortBy(function($query){
    return $query->role->name;
})->all();

In above example, it first get the users collection from the database and then sort them by the provided relation column. For these methods, you have to define belongsTo relationship in "User" model.

You can use sortByDesc() method same as above.

Example 4: Using subquery and whereColumn method

You can also use subqueries to sort records. For the above scenario, you can use subqueries as follows,

$users = User::select('*')
    ->orderBy(Role::select('name')
        ->whereColumn('roles.id', 'users.role_id')
    );

In above example, we have we used subquery from roles table using whereColumn method to get the name of the role of each row of users table. After getting the role name, we used orderBy method to achieve the sorted records.

For sorting records in descending order, you can use the above example with orderByDesc method.

You can use this example, without defining belongsTo relationship in model.

These are some useful examples to order records based on relationship model in Laravel.

Git Commands to Remove Merged or Nonexistent Local Branches

The following git commands will delete all local branches that have been removed from remote or merged into the main branch.

Over time, your local git branches list can become overwhelming, particularly if you develop on a single branch, generate a pull request, merge it into the main branch, and then remove the remote git branch once it has been merged. After the branch is removed from the remote repository, there is no need to keep it on your local machine.

The following git command will delete all local branches that have been merged into the main branch. If your git trunk branch is not named main or you wish to remove all branches that have been merged into a branch other than main, simply modify the two instances of the word main in the command to reflect the name of your branch.

List of git commands to remove local merged git branches

To remove all the local branches, which are merged into the main branch, navigate to the root of the repository and run the following git commands,

  • Fetch the latest updates from the git repository
git fetch
  • See the list of local branches available in the repository
git branch
  • Delete all local branches that have been merged to main branch
git branch --merged main | grep -v "^\* main" | xargs -n 1 -r git branch -d

Explanation:

This command is a combination of several Git commands and shell commands that work together to delete all the local Git branches that have been merged into the main branch, except for the main branch itself.

Here’s a breakdown of the individual commands and what they do:

  1. git branch --merged main: This command lists all the local branches that have been merged into the main branch. The --merged option tells Git to only list branches that have been fully merged into main.
  2. grep -v "^\* main": This command filters out the main branch from the list of branches. The -v option tells grep to invert the match, i.e., show only the lines that do not match the pattern. The pattern in this case is "^\* main", which matches lines that start with an asterisk (\*) followed by the text main.
  3. xargs -n 1 -r git branch -d: This command passes the list of merged branches (excluding main) to the git branch -d command, which deletes each branch. The -n 1 option tells xargs to pass one branch name at a time to the git branch -d command. The -r option tells xargs to only run the git branch -d command if there is at least one branch name to pass to it. The -d option tells Git to delete the branches, but only if they have been fully merged into the current branch (in this case, main). Note that this option will fail if the branch has unmerged changes, in which case the -D option could be used instead to force-delete the branch.

List of git commands to remove local nonexistent git branches

Similarly, run the following git commands to remove all the deleted branches from the local computer:

  • Fetch the latest updates from the git repository
git fetch
  • See the list of local branches available in the repository
git branch
  • Delete all local branches that have been merged to main branch
git branch -vv | grep ': gone]' | grep -v '\*' | awk '{ print $1; }' | xargs -r git branch -d

Explanation:

This command is a combination of several commands in a shell pipeline that work together to delete Git branches that are marked as "gone".

Here’s a breakdown of the individual commands and what they do:

  1. git branch -vv: This command lists all the Git branches in the local repository, with additional information about their upstream branches (if any). The -vv option adds more information about whether each branch is “up to date”, “behind”, or “ahead” of its upstream branch.
  2. grep ': gone]': This command filters the output of the git branch -vv command to only show the branches that are marked as "gone". The grep command searches for lines that contain the text ": gone]", which indicates that a branch is gone.
  3. grep -v '\*': This command further filters the output to exclude any branches that are currently checked out (indicated by the asterisk symbol). The -v option tells grep to invert the match, i.e., show only the lines that do not contain an asterisk.
  4. awk '{ print $1; }': This command extracts only the branch names from the filtered output. The awk command splits each line of input into fields and prints only the first field, which is the branch name.
  5. xargs -r git branch -d: This command passes the branch names to the git branch -d command, which deletes each branch. The -r option tells xargs to only run the git branch -d command if there is at least one branch name to pass to it. The -d option tells Git to delete the branches. Note that this option will fail if the branch has unmerged changes, in which case the -D option could be used instead to force-delete the branch.

Note: you can test these git commands by creating temporary repository on any git platform like, GitHub, GitLab or Bitbucket.

Learn How to Use Laravel Enum Casting

Laravel 9 has introduced enum model attribute casting, which makes it easier than ever to use enums in your application. With the help of an enum class and model casting, you can easily set up your table with specific enum values.

If you’re looking to use the enum data type in Laravel, you can do so easily with the help of enum model attribute casting. In this post, we’ll walk you through a step-by-step example to show you how to use enums in Laravel and cast them to a model attribute.

First, you’ll need to create a migration with a string column called "status" and a default value of "pending". Then, you can create a model and set the cast to your enum class. With this approach, you won’t have to create a new migration every time you want to add a new enum value to your table.

Laravel 9 has introduced enum model attribute casting, which makes it easier than ever to use enums in your application. With the help of an enum class and model casting, you can easily set up your table with specific enum values.

In this example, we’ll guide you through the process of creating a migration with a string column, creating a model with a cast to your enum class, and creating an enum class with specific values. Follow along with our step-by-step example to learn how to use Laravel enum attribute casting today.

Step 1: Install Laravel

If you haven’t already created a Laravel app, run the following command to install Laravel:

composer create-project laravel/laravel example-app

It will install new laravel app inside example-app folder. For further commands, go inside the example-app folder. There are many other ways to install the laravel application. Click on this link to visit Laravel installation documentation.

Step 2: Create Laravel Migration

Create a migration for the "enquiries" table with name, email, phone and status columns, as well as a model for the enquiries table. run the following command to create migration:

php artisan make:migration create_enquiries_table

Update the migration file with the following code:

use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;

return new class extends Migration
{
    public function up()
    {
        Schema::create('enquiries', function (Blueprint $table) {
            $table->id();
            $table->string('name');
            $table->string('email');
            $table->bigInteger('phone');
            $table->string('status')->default('pending');
            $table->timestamps();
        });
    }

    public function down()
    {
        Schema::dropIfExists('enquiries');
    }
};

Now, we are ready with our migration script. Run the following command to create the "enquiries" table:

php artisan migrate

Note that, we created the table with "status" value as "pending" by default.

Step 3: Create Enum Class

Create the Enums folder and EnquiryStatusEnum.php class inside the Enums to define all enum values as follows:

namespace App\Enums;

enum EnquiryStatusEnum: string {
    case Pending = 'pending';
    case InProgress = 'in-progress';
    case Closed = 'closed';
}

Step 4: Create Model

Now, we need a model file for our enquiries table. To create a model, run the following command:

php artisan make:model Enquiry

It will create Enquiry.php file inside the app/Models folder. Change the model file as follows:

namespace App\Models;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Factories\HasFactory;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
use App\Enums\EnquiryStatusEnum;

class Enquiry extends Model
{
    use HasFactory;

    protected $fillable = [
        'name', 'email', 'phone', 'status'
    ];

    protected $casts = [
        'status' => EnquiryStatusEnum::class
    ];
}

Here, we defined a $casts variable, which will cast the status variable with EnquiryStatusEnum class.

Step 5: Create Controller

Now, create a controller file using the following command:

php artisan make:controller EnquiryController

It will create the EnquiryController.php file inside the app/Http/Controllers folder. Write the following code inside index() method to create item records with an array and access as an array:

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Models\Enquiry;
use App\Enums\EnquiryStatusEnum;

class EnquiryController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        $input = [
            'name' => 'Test User',
            'email' => 'test@example.org',
            'phone' => 6358465465
            'status' => EnquiryStatusEnum::Active
        ];

        $enquiry = Enquiry::create($input);

        dd($enquiry->status, $enquiry->status->value);
    }
}

In above code, we have added a new entry inside the enquiries table and right after that we displayed the enquiry status.

Step 6: Create Route

To create a route for testing our code, add the following lines to routes/web.php file:

use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use App\Http\Controllers\EnquiryController;

Route::get('enquiry', [EnquiryController::class, 'index']);

Step 7: Run the Laravel app

To run the laravel app, use the following command:

php artisan serve

Open your web browser and enter the following URL to view the app output:

http://localhost:8000/enquiry

You can see the database output and print variable output:

App\Enums\EnquiryStatusEnum {#1781
    name: "InProgress"
    value: "in-progress"
}

in-progress

You can see the database output, which is showing casted values from EnquiryStatusEnum. And second parameter is value output, which is showing it’s corresponding string value "in-progress".

With these simple steps, you can easily use enum in Laravel without the need for constant migrations.

Install React JS with Laravel Breeze

Install Laravel Breeze, which offers React JS scaffolding via an Inertia frontend implementation to build modern React JS app.

In this React JS tutorial, we learn to install Laravel Breeze with React JS over Laravel Application. Laravel Breeze come equipped with out-of-the-box scaffolding for new Inertia applications, making them the quickest and easiest way to get your Inertia project off the ground with React Js.

For this post, we are using Laravel Breeze. This minimal implementation includes login, registration, password reset, email verification, password confirmation, and a basic “profile” page for updating user information.

Laravel Breeze comes equipped with simple Blade templates styled with Tailwind CSS. However, if you prefer to scaffold your application using React JS and Inertia JS, Laravel Breeze can do that too.

In addition to being an excellent starting point for a new Laravel project, Laravel Breeze is also a great choice for projects that want to elevate their Blade templates using Laravel Livewire.

Install laravel project and setup database

First install a fresh new Laravel application from the composer using the following command,

composer create-project laravel/laravel inertia-react

It will create the laravel project folder named inertia-react .

Now, you have to connect the laravel app to the database. Go inside this folder and open .env to change the database connection details as follows,

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=database_name
DB_USERNAME=database_username
DB_PASSWORD=database_password

After changing the connection details, run all migrations for the project using the following command,

php artisan migrate

Install Laravel Breeze over Laravel

Once you ready with the Laravel installation, you can proceed with Laravel Breeze installation using Composer using the following command,

composer require laravel/breeze --dev

Once you’ve installed the Laravel Breeze package using Composer, it’s time to run the breeze:install Artisan command as follows,

php artisan breeze:install

This command will publish all the necessary authentication resources, including views, routes, controllers, and more, directly to your application.

Laravel Breeze publishes its code directly to your application, giving you complete control and visibility over its features and implementation. This allows you to easily customize and tailor the authentication experience to fit your unique needs.

If you want to use an Inertia stack with React JS in your Laravel Breeze application, simply specify “react” as your desired stack when running the breeze:install Artisan command as follows,

php artisan breeze:install -react

Once the scaffolding is installed, be sure to compile your application’s frontend assets to ensure proper functionality:

npm install && npm run dev

With the initial setup complete, it’s time to test your application’s authentication functionality. Simply navigate to the /login or /register URLs in your web browser to get started.

All of Laravel Breeze‘s routes are defined in the routes/auth.php file, making it easy to modify or customize the authentication routes as needed.