How to improve Laravel Application Performance with Queues
What are Queues?
Queues are data structures that hold data to be processed later. They follow the First-In-First-Out (FIFO) principle, meaning that the first job added to the queue is the first to be processed. Laravel Queues allow you to postpone time-consuming tasks such as sending emails, PDF generation, or data processing, thereby freeing up the application to respond quickly to user requests.
Example
For example, consider an e-commerce application. When a user places an order, the application may need to process the order, send a confirmation email, update inventory, etc. Instead of making the user wait for all these tasks to complete, the application can add these tasks to a queue and respond immediately to the user, confirming their order. The tasks on the queue will then be processed in the background.
Setting up
Let's walk through the process of setting up a Laravel project that includes a Queue job, and dispatching the job with the Order class.
Create a new Laravel project
Open your terminal and navigate to your desired project directory. Run the following command to create a new Laravel project:
composer create-project --prefer-dist laravel/laravel LaravelQueueProject
Or by using:
laravel new LaravelQueueProject
Your project structure should be like this
Create the Queue job files
Generate the necessary Queue job files using the php artisan command. Run the following command in your terminal:
php artisan make:job ProcessOrder
This will create a new job file under the app/Jobs directory named the ProcessOrder.php
After running the command above, your project structure should be like this.
Jobs directory has been added into the app directory.
Define the order class
Inside the app directory, create a new file named the Order.php. This class will represent an order and hold relevant attributes. Here’s a simple example of the Order class:
// app/Order.php<?phpnamespace App;class Order{public $id;public $customer;// Add more properties and methods as needed}
Create the ProcessOrder job
Navigate to the app/Jobs directory and add the given below code in the file named the ProcessOrder.php. This job will process orders in the background queue and is set up to use tags for better management.
<?phpnamespace App\Jobs;use App\Order; // Import the Order classuse Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;use Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\Dispatchable;use Illuminate\Queue\InteractsWithQueue;use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;class ProcessOrder implements ShouldQueue{use Dispatchable, InteractsWithQueue, Queueable, SerializesModels;protected $order;// Add tags propertypublic $tags;public function __construct(Order $order){$this->order = $order;// Initialize tags with an array of tags$this->tags = ['order-processing', 'order-' . $order->id]; // Example tags}public function handle(){// Process the order...// You can add your order processing logic here}}
Dispatch the job
In your routes/web.php file, set up a route that dispatches the ProcessOrder job with an instance of the Order class:
<?phpuse App\Jobs\ProcessOrder;use App\Order; // Import the Order classuse Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;Route::get('/dispatch-job', function () {$order = new Order();$order->id = 123; // Replace with your order ID$order->customer = 'John Doe'; // Replace with customer informationProcessOrder::dispatch($order);return "Job dispatched!";});
Run the Queue worker
After dispatching jobs to the queue, you need to run the queue worker to actually process these jobs. Open a new terminal window and navigate to your project directory. Run the following command to start the Queue worker:
php artisan queue:work
The Queue worker will continuously listen for new jobs and process them in the background. This is a crucial step in order to see your queued jobs being executed.
Run the application
Start the Laravel development server by running:
php artisan serve
Access the URL http://localhost:8000/dispatch-job in your browser to dispatch the ProcessOrder job.
Output
APP_NAME=Laravel
APP_ENV=local
APP_KEY=base64:Td5kZ3UuVVwhwxdU7sUKmnzloEhNLqRpY101o3TdCpM=
APP_DEBUG=true
APP_URL=http://localhost
LOG_CHANNEL=stack
LOG_DEPRECATIONS_CHANNEL=null
LOG_LEVEL=debug
DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=project_name
DB_USERNAME=root
DB_PASSWORD=
BROADCAST_DRIVER=log
CACHE_DRIVER=file
FILESYSTEM_DRIVER=local
QUEUE_CONNECTION=sync
SESSION_DRIVER=file
SESSION_LIFETIME=120
MEMCACHED_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD=null
REDIS_PORT=6379
MAIL_MAILER=smtp
MAIL_HOST=mailhog
MAIL_PORT=1025
MAIL_USERNAME=null
MAIL_PASSWORD=null
MAIL_ENCRYPTION=null
MAIL_FROM_ADDRESS=null
MAIL_FROM_NAME="${APP_NAME}"
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1
AWS_BUCKET=
AWS_USE_PATH_STYLE_ENDPOINT=false
PUSHER_APP_ID=
PUSHER_APP_KEY=
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=mt1
MIX_PUSHER_APP_KEY="${PUSHER_APP_KEY}"
MIX_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER="${PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER}"
Conclusion
Laravel Queues are a powerful tool for improving application performance. By offloading time-consuming tasks to the queue, applications can respond faster, providing a better user experience.
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