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Using a Task to Periodically Pull in External Data

This topic provides information about Tasks and how to create and manage them.

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A Task is an entity that can periodically pull data from external systems and "inject" it into Octave as Events. For example, a Task can periodically look for new events is an RSS feed and then inject those as Events into a Stream. A Cloud Action can then invoke Octave.Event.find() from the Octave Cloud Action Runner API to find, sort, and order Events. For example, a Cloud Action can query a stream of light readings created every five minutes, report on bad devices, and push data to an external service such as a dashboard.

A Task is created and managed programmatically from an external system using Octave's REST API.

Elements of a Task

A Task consists of a destination stream where the Events are to be placed in Octave, periodicity which specifies how often, in milliseconds, to poll for external data, and a source which specifies where to pull the data from.

The source type can be set to http to read data from a URL, or eventFind to read from a specified a streamid or streamPath.

When using http, a parser type (e.g., RSS, JSON, etc.) must be specified so Octave knows how to read/extract the source data.

You can also include a js field in which you can define a JavaScript function to execute in the task as described below.

Creating a Task

A new Task is created by invoking the POST /task endpoint. In the following example, a Task is created that reads data from an RSS feed everything 20 seconds and writes to the /task_output Stream. Octave's rss parser is used to extract the data and convert it into Stream Events:

Request

## Create Task
curl -X "POST" "https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task" \
    -H 'X-Auth-Token: <token>' \
    -H 'X-Auth-User: <user>' \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8' \
    -d $'{
    "destination": "/my_company/task_output",
    "periodicity": "20000",
    "source": {
      "http": {
        "get": {
          "url": "https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss"
        },
        "parser": "rss"
      }
    },
    "displayName": "A sample task"
}'

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Note

You can find your username and master token on the user screen in the Octave Dashboard. These values used for the X-Auth-Token and X-Auth-User headers.

Response

The messages field indicates the result of request and the body field provides details about the new task such as its unique id:

{
   "head":{
      "status":201,
      "ok":true,
      "messages":[
         "Your request has been processed successfully. A new resource has been created."
      ],
      "errors":[

      ],
      "references":{

      }
   },
   "body":{
      "id":"t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3",
      "companyId":"c5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2d",
      "creationDate":1563293696545,
      "creatorId":"i5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2a",
      "destination":"/my_company/task_output",
      "displayName":"A sample task",
      "lastRun":0,
      "nextRun":0,
      "periodicity":20000,
      "runCt":0,
      "source":{
         "http":{
            "parser":"rss",
            "get":{
               "url":"https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss"
            }
         }
      },
      "status":"OK"
   }
}

Reading a Task

Information about an existing Task can be obtained at any time by invoking GET /tasks/{id} and passing the ID of the Task as a path parameter:

curl "https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task/t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3" \
     -H 'X-Auth-Token: <token>' \
     -H 'X-Auth-User: <user>'

Response

The body field provides details about the task:

{
  "head": {
    "status": 200,
    "ok": true,
    "messages": [],
    "errors": [],
    "references": {}
  },
  "body": {
    "id": "t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3",
    "companyId": "c5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2d",
    "creationDate": 1563293696545,
    "creatorId": "i5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2a",
    "description": "A RSS news feed containing the latest NASA news articles and press releases.",
    "destination": "/my_company/task_output",
    "displayName": "A sample task",
    "lastRun": 1563296216786,
    "nextRun": 1563296236786,
    "periodicity": 20000,
    "runCt": 127,
    "source": {
      "http": {
        "parser": "rss",
        "get": {
          "url": "https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss"
        }
      }
    },
    "status": "NO_NEW_DATA"
  }
}

Updating a Task

An existing Task can be updated by invoking the PUT /task/{endpoint} endpoint and passing the ID of the Task as a path parameter; the new Task property values are passed as body parameters. In the following example, the description property is updated to "My Task":

curl -X "PUT" "https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task/t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3" \
     -H 'X-Auth-Token: <token>' \
     -H 'X-Auth-User: <user>' \
     -d $'{
  "description": "My Task"
}'

Response

{
   "head":{
      "status":200,
      "ok":true,
      "messages":[

      ],
      "errors":[

      ],
      "references":{

      }
   },
   "body":{
      "id":"t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3",
      "companyId":"c5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2d",
      "creationDate":1563293696545,
      "creatorId":"i5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2a",
      "description":"My Task",
      "destination":"my_company/task_output",
      "displayName":"A sample task",
      "lastEditDate":1563302760142,
      "lastEditorId":"i5adf803aaa02b35e0cce7b2a",
      "lastRun":1563302756772,
      "nextRun":1563302776772,
      "periodicity":20000,
      "runCt":454,
      "source":{
         "http":{
            "parser":"rss",
            "get":{
               "url":"https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss"
            }
         }
      },
      "status":"OK"
   }
}

Deleting a Task

An existing task can be deleted by invoking the DELETE /task/{id} endpoint and passing the ID of the Task as a path parameter:

curl -X "DELETE" "https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task/t5d2df800c2b092ef7a3475d3" \
     -H 'X-Auth-Token: <token>' \
     -H 'X-Auth-User: <user>'

Response

The messsages field in the response indicates the result of the request:

{
   "head":{
      "status":200,
      "ok":true,
      "messages":[
         "Your request has been processed successfully. The requested resource has been deleted."
      ],
      "errors":[

      ],
      "references":{

      }
   },
   "body":{

   }
}

Simulating a Task

A Task can be "simulated" to show what an Event from a given source would look like, by invoking the POST /task/simulate endpoint. This is a way to check what the task would write to a Stream without actually writing to it. Similar to the Create Task endpoint, the simulate endpoint requires a source stream, periodicity, and destination stream. 

curl -X "POST" "https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task/simulate" \
    -H 'X-Auth-Token: <token>' \
    -H 'X-Auth-User: <user>' \
     -H 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8' \
     -d $'{
  "source": {
    "http": {
      "get": {
        "url": "https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss"
      },
      "parser": "rss"
    }
  },
  "periodicity": "20000",
  "destination": "/my_company/task_output",
  "displayName": "A sample task"
}'

Response

The events field in the response provides a preview of the event JSON that would be generated by Octave from the source data:

{
   "head":{
      "status":200,
      "ok":true,
      "messages":[

      ],
      "errors":[

      ],
      "references":{

      }
   },
   "body":{
      "events":{
         "/my_company/task_out":[
            {
               "metadata":null,
               "creationDate":null,
               "lastEditDate":null,
               "generatedDate":null,
               "path":null,
               "location":null,
               "hash":"http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-scientists-engineers-honored-with-presidential-early-career-awards",
               "tags":null,
               "elems":{
                  "thumbnail":{
                     "media_type":"image",
                     "mime_type":"image/jpeg",
                     "length":189751,
                     "url":"http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/1x1_cardfeed/public/thumbnails/image/nasa-logo-web-rgb_0.jpg?itok=mCRPbzgr"
                  },
                  "link":"http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-scientists-engineers-honored-with-presidential-early-career-awards",
                  "publication_date":1563305489105,
                  "description":"President Trump has named 18 NASA researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).",
                  "title":"NASA Scientists, Engineers Honored with Presidential Early Career Awards",
                  "content":{
                     "type":"html",
                     "value":"President Trump has named 18 NASA researchers as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)."
                  }
               }
            }
         ]
      }
   }
}

Adding Code to a Task

You can add a JavaScript function to be executed by a Task via the js field. The following example shows a cURL command to create a Task with a JavaScript function.

📘

Note

Note the use of '\'' as escape characters for instances of single quotes within the JavaScript function definition when passing it through cURL:

curl --location --request POST 'https://octave-api.sierrawireless.io/v5.0/my_company/task' \
--header 'X-Auth-Token: BjB...' \
--header 'X-Auth-User: df' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{ 
        "destination": "/my_company/task_output", 
        "periodicity": "20000", 
        "js": "function (events, raw){var offlineThreshold = Date.now() - (5 * 60 * 1000); var alreadyReportedThreshold = Date.now() - (8 * 60 * 1000); var filterString = '\''lastSeen<'\'' + offlineThreshold + '\''&&lastSeen>'\'' + alreadyReportedThreshold; var devices = Octave.Device.find({'\''filter'\'' : filterString}); var deviceIds = _.map(devices, function (device){ return device.id; }); var result = {};       if (deviceIds.length > 0){   var event =  {    elems : {      devices : deviceIds  }   };   result['\''/my_company/offline'\''] = [event];  } return result }", 
        "displayName": "A sample task" 
}'

Updated 3 months ago

Using a Task to Periodically Pull in External Data

This topic provides information about Tasks and how to create and manage them.

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