Laravel 8 scheduler with Example

This tutorial help to create task scheduling using laravel 8 scheduler. The web application require some tasks to be run periodically on the server. The laravel is providing elegant Task Scheduling mechanism to run task periodically.

The periodic task could be sending promotional emails, creating backups or generating report. The scheduler help to automate these tasks and run task periodically.

Create Scheduled Task in Laravel 8

We ll create a job that will send mail to the all users on daily basis, we ll schedule a job using laravel scheduler that ll fire method every day.

I am assuming you have laravel application running into the your server. You just want to schedule a tasks –
First , we ll go to the public folder of the laravel application, You should be in the root folder of your application

cd laravel_schedule_task/public_html

Let’s type the following command to create the custom artisan command:

php artisan make:command sendMailDaily

Above command will create a new command class in the app/Console/Commands directory. You will find the following code into it:

<?php

namespace App\Console\Commands;

use Illuminate\Console\Command;

class sendMailDaily extends Command

{

   /**

    * The name and signature of the console command.

    *

    * @var string

    */
   protected $signature = 'command:name';



   /**

    * The console command description.

    *

    * @var string

    */
   protected $description = 'Command description';



   /**

    * Create a new command instance.

    *

    * @return void

    */
   public function __construct()

   {

       parent::__construct();

   }



   /**

    * Execute the console command.

    *

    * @return mixed

    */
   public function handle()

   {

       //

   }

}

We ll update $singature command name – command:name with our command value –

protected $signature = 'daily:mail_send';

Now, update description variable –

protected $description = 'Send an daily email to all the users';

The description help to identify of what this command will actually achieve.

The handle() function that is called whenever you execute this command. This is where the logic or the code of your command should be present that ll be executed when the command ll be call.

update the handle() function with the below code –

public function handle()
{
$user = User::all();
foreach ($user as $a)
{
Mail::raw("This is automatically generated daily Update", function($message) use ($a)
{
$message->from('phpflow@gmail.com');
$message->to($a->email)->subject('Daily Update');
});
}
$this->info('Daily Update mails has been send successfully');
}

First, You ll fetch all the users from the user table and send them emails. Now that the command need to register it into the app/console/kernal.php file –

<?php

namespace App\Console;

use Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule;

use Illuminate\Foundation\Console\Kernel as ConsoleKernel;

class Kernel extends ConsoleKernel

{

   /**

    * The Artisan commands provided by your application.

    *

    * @var array

    */
   protected $commands = [

       Commands\sendMailDaily::class

   ];



   /**

    * Define the application's command schedule.

    *

    * @param  \Illuminate\Console\Scheduling\Schedule  $schedule

    * @return void

    */
   protected function schedule(Schedule $schedule)

   {

       $schedule->command('daily:mail_send')

                ->daily();

   }



   /**

    * Register the Closure based commands for the application.

    *

    * @return void

    */
   protected function commands()

   {

       require base_path('routes/console.php');

   }

}

In the above code, We have added command into the protected $commands, Where we have to register the command class. The schedule function is where you set the command to be executed at the specified time interval.

How To List Command Using PHP Artisan

We can see our latest registered command by running below command –

php artisan list

How To Run Manually Job Using Artisan Command

We can run command as following –

php artisan daily:mail_send

Schedule Frequency Options

There are following task schedule frequencies that you may assign to a laravel task:

Method	Description
->cron('* * * * *');	Run the task on a custom cron schedule
->everyMinute();	Run the task every minute
->everyTwoMinutes();	Run the task every two minutes
->everyThreeMinutes();	Run the task every three minutes
->everyFourMinutes();	Run the task every four minutes
->everyFiveMinutes();	Run the task every five minutes
->everyTenMinutes();	Run the task every ten minutes
->everyFifteenMinutes();	Run the task every fifteen minutes
->everyThirtyMinutes();	Run the task every thirty minutes
->hourly();	Run the task every hour
->hourlyAt(17);	Run the task every hour at 17 minutes past the hour
->everyTwoHours();	Run the task every two hours
->everyThreeHours();	Run the task every three hours
->everyFourHours();	Run the task every four hours
->everySixHours();	Run the task every six hours
->daily();	Run the task every day at midnight
->dailyAt('13:00');	Run the task every day at 13:00
->twiceDaily(1, 13);	Run the task daily at 1:00 & 13:00
->weekly();	Run the task every Sunday at 00:00
->weeklyOn(1, '8:00');	Run the task every week on Monday at 8:00
->monthly();	Run the task on the first day of every month at 00:00
->monthlyOn(4, '15:00');	Run the task every month on the 4th at 15:00
->twiceMonthly(1, 16, '13:00');	Run the task monthly on the 1st and 16th at 13:00
->lastDayOfMonth('15:00');	Run the task on the last day of the month at 15:00
->quarterly();	Run the task on the first day of every quarter at 00:00
->yearly();	Run the task on the first day of every year at 00:00
->yearlyOn(6, 1, '17:00');	Run the task every year on June 1st at 17:00
->timezone('America/New_York');	Set the timezone for the task

You can combined above schedule frequencies with additional constraints, You can run on certain days of the week.

// Run once per week on Monday at 1 PM…
$schedule->call(function () {
//
})->weekly()->sundays()->at('18:00');

There are following list of additional schedule constraints :

Method	Description
->weekdays();	Limit the task to weekdays
->weekends();	Limit the task to weekends
->sundays();	Limit the task to Sunday
->mondays();	Limit the task to Monday
->tuesdays();	Limit the task to Tuesday
->wednesdays();	Limit the task to Wednesday
->thursdays();	Limit the task to Thursday
->fridays();	Limit the task to Friday
->saturdays();	Limit the task to Saturday
->days(array|mixed);	Limit the task to specific days
->between($startTime, $endTime);	Limit the task to run between start and end times
->unlessBetween($startTime, $endTime);	Limit the task to not run between start and end times
->when(Closure);	Limit the task based on a truth test
->environments($env);	Limit the task to specific environments

How To Activate Laravel Scheduler With Crontab

Let’s open crontab file by running below command –

crontab -e

This will open the server Crontab file, paste the code below into the file, save and then exit.

* * * * cd /path-to-your-project && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

Please make sure the replace /path/to/artisan with the full path to the Artisan command of your Laravel Application.

Preventing Task Overlaps

Sometimes , we have number of tasks are scheduled to run, The scheduled tasks will be run even if the previous instance of the task is still running. To prevent this, you may use the withoutOverlapping method:

$schedule->command('emails:send')->withoutOverlapping();

Conclusion

This tutorial help to understand laravel 8 scheduler with example. We have created a artisan command and added logic to do our task. The cron file is used to activate our laravel scheduler task.