How to run a task continuously in the background - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hi,

another oracle -> postgreSQL migration question.

I have a database in which a job runs continuously to perform tasks that are inserted into a table in the form of records.

The current Oracle implementation is to use DBMS_JOB to start a job (to be precise, there can be multiple jobs working in parallel) that goes through the following loop:

• is there anything to do?
  • Yes -> Do Tasks
  • No  -> 1 second sleep
• Was the EXIT command sent to me?
  • Yes -> Exit loop.

The question now is how do I start in PostgreSQL a background task that meets the following requirements:

1. It must continue to run even if the connection in which the task was started is terminated.
2. I need to be able to check if a background task exists.
3. I need to be able to finish the background task without explicitly sending the EXIT command (see above) to the task.

I've already looked at the pg_background extension, but I don't think it meets either requirement 2 or requirement 3. But maybe I just didn’t look hard enough. And with regard to requirement 1, I'm not sure that's guaranteed.

Any suggestions on how this might be realized. Preferably without an external application. ☺

BR

Dirk