Release Schedule Helper

• Tags: php,
• Written on: August 1, 2013

I release a library to help with generating re-occuring schedules. Lacking a better name I called it ScheduleHelper.

I worked on this code for 3 afternoons, I developed this component as part of a future bill reminder app for owncloud.

I used a builder to hide the complexity of configuring a schedule and standardize the return type to an Iterator, you may ask the builder to skip the iterator ahead while skipping the start to simulate end of period billing and I have implement the following common periods, Yearly, Weekly, Monthly, Fortnightly, Weekday, BiMonthly, Quarterly.

Examples

This create a daily schedule that limit to 12 re-occursions and skip the first period. Important to note that there will be 13 occurrences, if the start is not skipped. This is a feature of PHP DatePeriod when setting a limit using an integer

    use DateTime;
    use IComeFromTheNet\Schedule\ScheduleBuilder;
 
    $start = new DateTime();
    $occurrence = 12;
 
    $builder = new ScheduleBuilder();
 
    return $builder->daily()
            ->start($start)
            ->limit($reoccurance)
            ->skipStart()
            ->build();

This will return a monthly schedule 4 occurances in. If the starting month was August the first starting value at december. Using a LimitIterator to restrict the result set.

    use DateTime;
    use IComeFromTheNet\Schedule\ScheduleBuilder;
 
 
    $start = new DateTime();
    $reoccurance = 12;
 
    $builder = new ScheduleBuilder();
 
    return $builder->monthly()
            ->start($start)
            ->limit($reoccurance)
            ->offset(4)
            ->build();

This will return a monthly schedule, the rule is defined using a string and not direct method call.

    use DateTime;
    use IComeFromTheNet\Schedule\ScheduleBuilder;
 
 
    $start = new DateTime();
    $reoccurance = 12;
 
    $builder = new ScheduleBuilder();
 
    return $builder->create('monthly')
            ->start($start)
            ->limit($reoccurance)
            ->build();