Introduction

One way to talk to Taskr in PHP is using the Zend_Rest_Client library. The client, part of the Zend_Framework, is an abstraction layer providing an object-oriented API for RESTful resources.

The Zend_Framework is available for download from http://framework.zend.com/download. For general information on using the library, have a look at:

• http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.rest.client.html
• http://www.pixelated-dreams.com/archives/243-Next-Generation-REST-Web-Services-Client.html

Setup

First, make sure that the Zend framework is installed somewhere in your include_path. Then at the top of your php script:

<?php
require 'Zend/Rest/Client.php';

$taskr_site_url = "http://localhost:7007";
?>

Authentication

If you have authentication enabled on your Taskr server, you will need to provide the credentials for the client:

$username = 'taskr';
$password = 'task!';
Zend_Rest_Client::getHttpClient()->setAuth(username, $password);

Okay, now we're ready to start working with Tasks.

Retrieving the list of all scheduled Tasks

<?php
$rest = new Zend_Rest_Client($taskr_site_url);
$tasks = $rest->get("/tasks.xml");
?>

$tasks is a SimpleXml object, so calling print_r($result) will let you see all of its data.

Here's an example of how to print out all of the tasks as an HTML list:

<?php
if ($tasks->task) {
	echo "<ul>\n";
	foreach ($tasks->task as $task) {
		echo "\t<li>".$task->name."</li>\n";
		echo "\t<ul>\n";
		echo "\t\t<li>execute ".$task->{'schedule-method'}." ".$task->{'schedule-when'}."</li>\n";
		echo "\t\t<li>created by ".$task->{'created-by'}." on ".$task->{'created-on'}."</li>\n";
		echo "\t</ul>\n";
	}
	echo "</ul>\n";
} else {
	echo "<p>There are no scheduled tasks.</p>\n";
}
?>

Creating a new Task

First, we will create a simple Task that executes a piece of Ruby code every 10 seconds:

$data = array(
	'name' => "My Example Task #".mktime(),
	'schedule_method' => "every",
	'schedule_when' => "10s",
	'action' => array(
		'action_class_name' => "Ruby",
		'code' => 'puts "Hello World!"'
	)
);

$task1 = $rest->post('/tasks.xml', $data);

Next we will create a Task that will execute two different actions 5 minutes from now -- the first action is just a piece of Ruby code, the other is a REST call to the Howlr] messaging service:

$data = array(
	'name' => "Another Example Task #".mktime(),
	'schedule_method' => "in",
	'schedule_when' => "5m",
	'actions' => array(
		array('action_class_name' => "Ruby",
			'code' => 'puts "Sending a message through Howlr..."'),
		array('action_class_name' => "Howlr",
			'url' => "http://howlr.example.foo/messages.xml",
                        'subject' => "Testing",
                        'from' => "joe@example.foo",
                        'recipients' => "sally@example.foo",
                        'body' => "Just testing!",
                        'username' => "howlr",
                        'password' => "howl!")
	)
);

$task2 = $rest->post('/tasks.xml', $data);

Note that the list of actions is specified as an array of associative arrays. Each associative array represents an action, with the action_class_name specifying the action type (see BuiltInActionTypes) and the remaining key-value pairs specifying the list of parameters for the action. In this case the first action will execute the Ruby code given in its code parameter -- this one just prints out a message to the console. The second is a more complex action, sending a REST request to an external service. Actions are executed one by one, in the given order, although this can be overridden by specifying order values for each action array.

Retrieving a specific Task

Retrieve one of the tasks we just created:

<?php
$id = $task1->id;
$rest = new Zend_Rest_Client($taskr_site_url);
$task = $rest->get("/tasks/$id.xml");
?>

Now print the Task's name:

<?php echo $task->name; ?>

Print the type of the first action in this task:

<?php echo $task->{'task-actions'}->{'task-action'}[0]->{'action-class-name'}; ?>

Deleting a Task

Now lets delete the two tasks we created above:

$id1 = $task1->id;
$rest->delete("/tasks/$id1.xml");

$id2 = $task2->id;
$rest->delete("/tasks/$id2.xml");

Deleting a task automatically unschedules it.