Run once a day

Question

Is there any clever method out there to make my executeEveryDayMethod() execute once a day, without having to involve the Windows TaskScheduler?

Regards

/Anders

Answer 1

Take a look at quartz.net. It is a scheduling library for .net.

More specifically take a look here.

Answer 2

I achieved this by doing the following...

1. Set up a timer that fires every 20 minutes (although the actual timing is up to you - I needed to run on several occasions throughout the day).
2. on each Tick event, check the system time. Compare the time to the scheduled run time for your method.
3. If the current time is less than the scheduled time, check a in some persistent storage to get the datetime value of the last time the method ran.
4. If the method last ran more than 24 hours ago, run the method, and stash the datetime of this run back to your data store
5. If the method last ran within the last 24 hours, ignore it.

HTH

*edit - code sample in C# :: Note : untested...

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Timers;

namespace ConsoleApplication2
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Timer t1 = new Timer();
            t1.Interval = (1000 * 60 * 20); // 20 minutes...
            t1.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(t1_Elapsed);
            t1.AutoReset = true;
            t1.Start();

            Console.ReadLine();
        }

        static void t1_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
        {
            DateTime scheduledRun = DateTime.Today.AddHours(3);  // runs today at 3am.
            System.IO.FileInfo lastTime = new System.IO.FileInfo(@"C:\lastRunTime.txt");
            DateTime lastRan = lastTime.LastWriteTime;
            if (DateTime.Now > scheduledRun)
            {
                TimeSpan sinceLastRun = DateTime.Now - lastRan;
                if (sinceLastRun.Hours > 23)
                {
                    doStuff();
                    // Don't forget to update the file modification date here!!!
                }
            }
        }

        static void doStuff()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Running the method!");
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

If the time when it is run is not relevant and can be reset each time the program starts you can just set a timer, which is the easiest thing to do. If that's not acceptable it starts getting more complex, like the solution presented here and which still doesn't solve the persistence problem, you need to tackle that separately if you truly wish to do what Scheduled Tasks would. I'd really consider again if it's worth going through all the trouble to replicate a perfectly good existing functionality.

Here's a related question (Example taken from there).

using System;
using System.Timers;

public class Timer1
{
    private static Timer aTimer = new System.Timers.Timer(24*60*60*1000);

    public static void Main()
    {
        aTimer.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(ExecuteEveryDayMethod);
        aTimer.Enabled = true;

        Console.WriteLine("Press the Enter key to exit the program.");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    // Specify what you want to happen when the Elapsed event is 
    // raised.
    private static void ExecuteEveryDayMethod(object source, ElapsedEventArgs e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("The Elapsed event was raised at {0}", e.SignalTime);
    }
}

Answer 4

You could query time and run if your within some time frame, that way even if the machine goes off you'll call the method or use a timer like Vinko's suggestion.

But the better solution (akin to older CRON versions, so its a proven pattern) is to have some persistent data, with the cheapest solution I can think of right now being a blank file, check its last modified attribute, and if it hasn't been modified within the last 24 hours you touch it and run your method. This way you assure the method gets run first thing in the case the application is out for the weekend for example.

I've done this in C# before, but its was a year ago at another Job, so I don't have the code but it was about 20 lines (with comments and all) or so.

Answer 5

There may be problems if the computer reboots so you could run the application as a windows service.

Answer 6

To run the job once daily between 7 and 8pm, i set up a timer with interval = 3600000 ms and then just execute the following code for timer tick.

private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    //ensure that it is running between 7-8pm daily.
    if (DateTime.Now.Hour == 19)
    { 
        RunJob(); 
    }
 }

An hour window is fine for me. Extra granularity on time will require a smaller interval on the timer (60000 for a minute) and including minutes on the if.

eg

{
    //ensure that it is running at 7:30pm daily.
    if (DateTime.Now.Hour == 19 && DateTime.Now.Minute == 30)
    { 
        RunJob(); 
    }
 }

Answer 7

If you only want to run it once a day and don't care when, this will work (will run just after midnight).

Declare a DateTime variable:

DateTime _DateLastRun;

In your startup, set the initial date value:

_DateLastRun = DateTime.Now.Date;

In the logic area where you want to check whether to perform the action:

if (_DateLastRun < DateTime.Now.Date) 
{
    // Perform your action
    _DateLastRun= DateTime.Now.Date;
}