{"id":2010,"date":"2020-04-15T21:42:43","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T13:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/?p=2010"},"modified":"2020-05-12T14:21:03","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T06:21:03","slug":"how-to-create-an-interval-task-that-runs-periodically-within-your-python-3-flask-application-with-flask-apscheduler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techcoil.com\/blog\/how-to-create-an-interval-task-that-runs-periodically-within-your-python-3-flask-application-with-flask-apscheduler\/","title":{"rendered":"How to create an interval task that runs periodically within your Python 3 Flask application with Flask-APScheduler"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously, I talked about how to use Flask-APScheduler in your Python 3 Flask application to run multiple tasks in parallel, from a single HTTP request<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you wish to run long running tasks triggered by an HTTP request<\/a>, then that post will help you do so.<\/p>\n

However, what if you want to run jobs periodically without blocking your Flask HTTP server<\/a> from serving HTTP requests?<\/p>\n

In this case, you will want to run an interval task with Flask-APScheduler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given that, let's look at how we can use Flask-APScheduler to create an interval task within your Python 3 Flask application.<\/p>\n

Some scenarios to run interval tasks within our Python 3 Flask application<\/h2>\n

So, under what circumstances do we run interval tasks within our Python 3 Flask application?<\/p>\n

Typically, we run interval tasks to prepare data in advance for future HTTP requests that our Flask application receives.<\/p>\n

For example, we may want to capture images in the dark with the Raspberry Pi<\/a>. In such a scenario, we can have an interval task snapping photos in advance. When an HTTP request is received to view the photos, we can then return the most recent photo that was taken earlier.<\/p>\n

Another example can be when we monitor soil moisture with a Raspberry Pi<\/a>. In such a situation, we can use an interval task to capture time series data for soil moisture. Given that, our Flask application can then serve soil moisture statistics as HTTP responses<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Installing Flask-APScheduler into your Python 3 environment<\/h2>\n

In order to use Flask-APScheduler, we will need to install it into our Python environment:<\/p>\n

\r\npip install Flask-APScheduler\r\n<\/pre>\n
Flask-APScheduler built-in trigger types<\/h2>\n
Since Flask-APScheduler is based on APScheduler<\/a>, it has three built-in trigger types:<\/p>\n