Drupal 8 Queue API – Powerful Manual and Cron Queueing

The Queue API in Drupal allows us to handle a number of tasks at a later stage. What this means is that we can place items into a queue which will run some time in the future and process each individual item at that point and at least once. Usually, this happens on CRON runs, and Drupal 8 allows for a quick set up for cronjob based queues. It doesn’t necessarily have to be CRON, however.

In this article, we will look at using the Queue API in Drupal 8 by exploring two simple examples. The first will see the queue triggered by Cron while the second will allow us to manually do so ourselves. However, the actual processing will be handled by a similar worker. If you want to follow along, clone this git repository where you can find the npq module we will write in this article.

The module we’ll work with is called Node Publisher Queue and it automatically adds newly created nodes that are saved unpublished to a queue to be published later on. We will see how later on can be the next CRON run or a manual action triggered by the site’s administrator. First, let’s understand some basic concepts about queues in Drupal 8.

The theory

There are a few components that make up the Queue API in Drupal 8.

The most important role in this API is played by the QueueInterface implementation which represents the queue. The default queue type Drupal 8 ships with is currently the DatabaseQueue which is a type of reliable queue that makes sure all its items are processed at least once and in their original order (FIFO). This is in contrast to unreliable queues which only do their best to achieve this (something for which valid use cases do exist).

The typical role of the queue object is to create items, later claim them from the queue and delete them when they have been processed. In addition, it can release items if processing is either not finished or another worker needs to process them again before deletion.

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by Daniel Sipos via SitePoint