I'm running a cfschedule at "daily" intervals, but is there anyway to get it to execute at random hours not every 24th hour from when i initially set it to run?

Why do you want to do this?

You could use the task code to update its own schedule each time it runs to be rescheduled for an random hour the following day.

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Adam

This goes against what cfschedule was designed for, namely, to schedule tasks at fixed time intervals. I do believe that, even if you use something like this

<cfschedule action="update" interval="#some_randomly_generated_integer#">

it still won't work. I think that ColdFusion will use one of the integers to define the task, then will cache the task for continued reuse later, ignoring any further changes to the value of the interval attribute.

Suppose, the task has to fire once daily, at a random time. Take a one-week period (illustrated below).

|x...........|......x.....|...........x|.x..........|x...........|.... .......x|.....x......|

Then the interval between successive task executions could be as short as a few minutes(such as between days 3 and 4), or as long as 2 days(such as between days 5 and 6). Thought I'd share the thought.

I am curious to know whether the following idea works. The tasks are to be run in this order:

setTime.cfm

<cfschedule action = "update"

    task = "setTime"

    operation = "HTTPRequest"

    url = "http://127.0.0.1:8500/cfscheduleTest/randomTime.cfm"

    startDate = "4/21/2012"

    startTime = "00:00"

    interval = "daily">

randomTime.cfm

<cfset randomHour = randRange(0,23,"SHA1PRNG")><!--- Random integer in range [0,23] --->

<cfset application.randomTime = randomHour & ":15">

<!--- Schedule the task--->

<!---<cfhttp method="get" url="http://127.0.0.1:8500/cfscheduleTest/task.cfm">--->

<cfinclude template="task.cfm">

task.cfm

<cfparam name="application.randomTime" default="9:15">

<cfschedule action = "update"

    task = "runner"

    operation = "HTTPRequest"

    url = "http://127.0.0.1:8500/cfscheduleTest/xyz.cfm"

    startDate = "4/21/2012"

    startTime = "#application.randomTime#"

    interval = "daily"

    resolveURL = "Yes"

    requestTimeOut = "600">

It doesn't need to be that complicated.  Here's an example of a task which reschedules itself at a random time between 1-5min hence.

<!--- randomInteral.cfm --->

<cfset dRunTime = dateAdd("n", randRange(1,5), now())>

<cfset sRunTime = timeFormat(dRunTime, "HH:MM")>

<cflog file="randomIntervalExperiment" text="Ran task. Next run @ #sRunTime#">

<cfschedule

          action                    = "update"

          interval          = "once"

          operation          = "HTTPRequest"

          startdate          = "#dateFormat(now(), 'mm/dd/yy')#"

          starttime          = "#sRunTime#"

          task                    ="randomInterval"

          url                              = "http://localhost:8301/shared/CF/CFML/tags/other/schedule/randomInterva l.cfm"

>

For your purposes, you'd need to vary it to increment the startdate by one, as well as setting the start time to be a random hour (rather than just 1-5min).  But that's the basic gist of what you want to do.

I just did 1-5min in my example so I could actually test the veracity of my suggestions (without having to wait until tomorrow ;-)), rather than just guess...

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Adam

Adam Cameron. wrote:

 

This goes against what cfschedule was designed for, namely, to schedule tasks at fixed time intervals.

 

Not so.  <cfschedule> can also be used simply to run some code "later": it doesn't necessarily need to be at an interval.  It specifically caters for running a task only once (interval="once").  It also caters for updating an existing task as required (action="update"), so it's entirely possible to have a run-once task schedule itself again at a different time.

All of this is true. It in fact confirms my point. "Later", "once" and "update" tasks all occur at a fixed time interval, even in cases where tasks are configured to be rerun. The way I see it, recurrence is then a sequence of fixed intervals. However, I should point out that I am using the word 'fixed' as a contrast to the 'random' in the question.  I took it for granted that was clear.

A little off topic, is there any reason why a cfschedule won't delete. I used:

 

<cfschedule  action = "delete"

    task = "sendreminder">

 

But the task just keeps on executing. I'm contacting the web host now.

That syntax works for me, so if it's not working for you, there's something else afoot.  However you are deleting a task called "sendreminder" there, and in your earlier code, it was called "sendit".  Are you sure you're trying to delete the correct task?

--

Adam

I'd just not expose the URLs that are for scheduled tasks to the outside world at all.  Problem goes away.

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Adam

lovewebdev wrote:

 

Yes the task name is correct. I'm finding out from the hosting company why its not deleting. Aargh. Maybe it hung somehow. Dont know.

In my experience, the best place to put the delete code is the CFM page that defines the task. Temporarily comment out the cfschedule tag that defines the task, and run the delete code in its place. As I said, ColdFusion is known to sometimes require a few tries before granting you your wish.

Why not adapt the page to also run the task code!

Sorry, I thought that was sufficiently obvious as to go without saying.

But... yes... that was the idea.

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Adam