I need to build a Node.js API that, for each different user that calls it, starts running some piece of code (a simple script that sets up a Telegram client, listens to new messages and performs a couple of tasks here) that’d then continuously run in the background.
My ideas so far have been a) launching a new child process for each API call and b) for each call automatically deploying the script on the cloud.
I assume the first idea wouldn’t be scalable, as for the second I have no experience on the matter.
I searched a dozen of keyword and haven’t found anything relevant so far. Is there any handy way to implement this? In which direction can I search?
I look forward to any hint
2
Answers
Im not a node dev, but as a programmer you can do something like:
When user is active, it calls a function
this function must count the seconds that has passed to match the 24h (86400 seconds == 24 hours) and do the tasks;
When time match, the program stops
Node.js is nothing more that an event loop (libuv) whose execution stack run on v8 (javascript). The process will keep running until the stack is empty.
Keep it mind that there is only one thread executing your code (the event loop) and everything will happen as callback.
As long as you set up your telegram client with some listeners, node.js will wait for new messages and execute related listener.
Just instantiate a new client on each api call and listen to it, no need to spam a new process.
Anyway you’ll eventually end in out of memory if you don’t limit the number of parallel client of if you don’t close them after some time (eg. using setInterval()).