gem install ice_cubeice_cube is a ruby library for easily handling repeated events (schedules). The API is modeled after iCalendar events, in a pleasant Ruby syntax. The power lies in the ability to specify multiple rules, and have ice_cube quickly figure out whether the schedule falls on a certain date (.occurs_on?), or what times it occurs at (.occurrences, .first, .all_occurrences).
Imagine you want:
Every friday the 13th that falls in October
You would write:
schedule.add_recurrence_rule(
Rule.yearly.day_of_month(13).day(:friday).month_of_year(:october)
)With ice_cube, you can specify (in increasing order of precedence):
- Recurrence Rules - Rules on how to include recurring times in a schedule
- Recurrence Times - To specifically include in a schedule
- Exception Times - To specifically exclude from a schedule
Example: Specifying a recurrence with an exception time:
schedule = IceCube::Schedule.new(now = Time.now) do |s|
s.add_recurrence_rule(Rule.daily.count(3))
s.add_exception_time(now + 1.day)
end
# list occurrences until end_time (end_time is needed for non-terminating rules)
occurrences = schedule.occurrences(end_time) # [now]
# or all of the occurrences (only for terminating schedules)
occurrences = schedule.all_occurrences # [now, now + 2.days]
# or check just a single time
schedule.occurs_at?(now + 1.day) # false
schedule.occurs_at?(now + 2.days) # true
# or check just a single day
schedule.occurs_on?(Date.today) # true
# or check whether it occurs between two dates
schedule.occurs_between?(now, now + 30.days) # true
schedule.occurs_between?(now + 3.days, now + 30.days) # false
# or the first (n) occurrences
schedule.first(2) # [now, now + 2.days]
schedule.first # now
# or the last (n) occurrences (if the schedule terminates)
schedule.last(2) # [now + 1.day, now + 2.days]
schedule.last # now + 2.days
# or the next occurrence
schedule.next_occurrence(from_time) # defaults to Time.now
schedule.next_occurrences(3, from_time) # defaults to Time.now
schedule.remaining_occurrences # for terminating schedules
# or the previous occurrence
schedule.previous_occurrence(from_time)
schedule.previous_occurrences(3, from_time)
# or give the schedule a duration and ask if occurring_at?
schedule = IceCube::Schedule.new(now, :duration => 3600)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.daily
schedule.occurring_at?(now + 1800) # true
schedule.occurring_between?(t1, t2)
# using end_time also sets the duration
schedule = IceCube::Schedule.new(start = Time.now, :end_time => start + 3600)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.daily
schedule.occurring_at?(start + 3599) # true
schedule.occurring_at?(start + 3600) # false
# take control and use iteration
schedule = IceCube::Schedule.new
schedule.add_recurrence_rule IceCube::Rule.daily.until(Date.today + 30)
schedule.each_occurrence { |t| puts t }The reason that schedules have durations and not individual rules, is to maintain compatability with the ical RFC: http://www.kanzaki.com/docs/ical/rrule.html
To limit schedules use count or until on the recurrence rules. Setting end_time on the schedule just sets the duration (from the start time) for each occurrence.
ice_cube works great without ActiveSupport but only supports the environment's
single "local" time zone (ENV['TZ']) or UTC. To correctly support multiple
time zones (especially for DST), you should require 'active_support/time'.
A schedule's occurrences will be returned in the same class and time zone as the schedule's start_time. Schedule start times are supported as:
- Time.local (default when no time is specified)
- Time.utc
- ActiveSupport::TimeWithZone (with
Time.zone.now,Time.zone.local,time.in_time_zone(tz)) - DateTime (deprecated) and Date are converted to a Time.local
ice_cube implements its own hash-based .to_yaml, so you can quickly (and safely) serialize schedule objects in and out of your data store
yaml = schedule.to_yaml
IceCube::Schedule.from_yaml(yaml)
hash = schedule.to_hash
IceCube::Schedule.from_hash(hash)ice_cube can provide ical or string representations of individual rules, or the whole schedule.
rule = IceCube::Rule.daily(2).day_of_week(:tuesday => [1, -1], :wednesday => [2])
rule.to_ical # 'FREQ=DAILY;INTERVAL=2;BYDAY=1TU,-1TU,2WE'
rule.to_s # 'Every 2 days on the last and 1st Tuesdays and the 2nd Wednesday'There are many types of recurrence rules that can be added to a schedule:
# every day
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.daily
# every third day
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.daily(3)# every week
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.weekly
# every other week on monday and tuesday
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.weekly(2).day(:monday, :tuesday)
# for programmatic convenience (same as above)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.weekly(2).day(1, 2)
# specifying a weekly interval with a different first weekday (defaults to Sunday)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.weekly(1, :monday)# every month on the first and last days of the month
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.monthly.day_of_month(1, -1)
# every other month on the 15th of the month
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.monthly(2).day_of_month(15)Monthly rules will skip months that are too short for the specified day of
month (e.g. no occurrences in February for day_of_month(31)).
# every month on the first and last tuesdays of the month
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.monthly.day_of_week(:tuesday => [1, -1])
# every other month on the first monday and last tuesday
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.monthly(2).day_of_week(
:monday => [1],
:tuesday => [-1]
)
# for programmatic convenience (same as above)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.monthly(2).day_of_week(1 => [1], 2 => [-1])# every year on the 100th days from the beginning and end of the year
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.yearly.day_of_year(100, -100)
# every fourth year on new year's eve
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.yearly(4).day_of_year(-1)# every year on the same day as start_time but in january and february
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.yearly.month_of_year(:january, :februrary)
# every third year in march
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.yearly(3).month_of_year(:march)
# for programatic convenience (same as above)
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.yearly(3).month_of_year(3)# every hour on the same minute and second as start date
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.hourly
# every other hour, on mondays
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.hourly(2).day(:monday)# every 10 minutes
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.minutely(10)
# every hour and a half, on the last tuesday of the month
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.minutely(90).day_of_week(:tuesday => [-1])# every second
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.secondly
# every 15 seconds between 12:00 - 12:59
schedule.add_recurrence_rule Rule.secondly(15).hour_of_day(12)The team over at GetJobber have open-sourced RecurringSelect, which makes working with IceCube easier in a Rails app via some nice helpers.
Check it out at https://github.com/GetJobber/recurring_select
- Andrew Vit (@avit)
- Mat Brown - mat@patch.com
- Philip Roberts
- @sakrafd
Use the GitHub issue tracker
- Contributions are welcome - I use GitHub for issue tracking (accompanying failing tests are awesome) and feature requests
- Submit via fork and pull request (include tests)
- If you're working on something major, shoot me a message beforehand