Schedulers

Schedulers are instructor scripts that run periodically. They can be managed via Manage Course > Manage schedulers.

Interval Guarantees

Schedulers only run when a page load occurs. Thus, the interval parameter only guarantees a minimum time between runs.

Scheduler structure

Schedulers must define a update method within a class or module. Changes made to the scheduler file take effect immediately.

Using a module

module Updater
    def self.update(course)
        # code goes here
    end
end

Using a class

class Updater
    def self.update(course)
        # code goes here
    end
end

Visual Run

You can run a scheduler manually by clicking the Run button. This is useful for ensuring the code's correctness.

To assist in debugging, you can return a string from the update method, which will be displayed as output in the browser. You should return nil to represent no output.

Output String

If you do not explicitly return a value, this might lead to unexpected outputs due to Ruby's implicit return values.

The return value will be converted to a string if possible, else it will be treated as no output.

Example file

module Updater
    def self.update(course)
        out = ""
        out << "my output\n"

        out
    end
end

Visual Run Output