Running a queue worker without using cron tasks

Question

I implemented hook_queue_info() with the following code.

function ecc_general_queue_info() {
  $queues = array();
  $queues['adding_checklist'] = array(
    'worker callback' => '_ecc_general_apply_queue',
    'time' => 60,
  );
  return $queues;
}

I create items for the queue with the following code.

$queue_factory = \Drupal::service('queue');
$queue = $queue_factory->get('adding_checklist');
$queue->createItem([$node, 'insert']);

The callback function is the following.

function _ecc_general_apply_queue($item) {
  // Some code here.
}

I want to run this callback for each item in the queue. How can I process the queue to execute its worker callback for each item?

I don't want to use cron tasks for processing the queue.

Answer 1

Drupal 8 doesn't use hook_queue_info() but annotates the queue class using the @QueueWorker annotation, as in the following code taken from a Drupal core module.

/**
 * Updates a feed's items.
 *
 * @QueueWorker(
 *   id = "aggregator_feeds",
 *   title = @Translation("Aggregator refresh"),
 *   cron = {"time" = 60}
 * )
 */
class AggregatorRefresh extends QueueWorkerBase {

  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public function processItem($data) {
    if ($data instanceof FeedInterface) {
      $data
        ->refreshItems();
    }
  }

}

That, anyway, is not an annotation for a generic queue, but for a queue handled by the Cron class (which is the class implementing the cron service).

If you don't need to handle your queue during cron tasks, you simply don't use the @QueueWorker annotation.

The code to consume queue items is similar to the following one. (The code is specific for your case.)

$queue = \Drupal::service('queue')->get('adding_checklist');
while ($item = $queue->claimItem()) {
  $node = $item->data[0];
  // ...
  $queue->deleteItem($item);
}

Answer 2

Queue is processed by cron through core. You can also use Drush and Drupal Console to run queue items as well.

Drush:

drush queue:list to get the available queues.

drush queue:run to run a single item.

drush queue:delete to clear a queue.

Drupal Console:

drupal debug:queue to debug your queue.

drupal queue:run <name-of-the-queue> To run a single item.