XP on Rails Extreme Programming Blog

4Mar/112

How to send email asynchronously using Devise and Rails3

ORIGINAL POST

Hello everyone.

I’d show a workaround to send email asynchronously using Devise and Rails3.

Suppose we have already up and running our application with Devise and delayed_job correctly installed.

A first attempt was to add in config/initializers the following file (devise_async.rb):

#devise_async.rb
module Devise
  module Models
    module Confirmable
      handle_asynchronously :send_confirmation_instructions
    end

    module Recoverable
      handle_asynchronously :send_reset_password_instructions
    end

    module Lockable
      handle_asynchronously :send_unlock_instructions
    end
  end
end

This workaround has worked in part: the send method has been properly enqueued in the database, but when delayed_job tries to fire the job, the following error is raised:

User#send_confirmation_instructions_without_delay failed with NoMethodError: undefined method 'send_confirmation_instructions_without_delay' for #<User:0x000000032f87c8> - 1 failed attempts
[Worker(host:stefano-desktop pid:13153)]

As you can see, the job is trying to call the wrong send method: send_confirmation_instructions_without_delay.

At this point, I’ve implemented an even more dirty hack, overriding Devise’e methods using the syntax specified by intridea to send emails in the background:

#devise_async.rb
module Devise
  module Models
    module Confirmable
      # Send confirmation instructions by email
      def send_confirmation_instructions
        generate_confirmation_token! if self.confirmation_token.nil?
        ::Devise.mailer.delay.confirmation_instructions(self)
      end
    end

    module Recoverable
      # Resets reset password token and send reset password instructions by email
      def send_reset_password_instructions
        generate_reset_password_token!
        ::Devise.mailer.delay.reset_password_instructions(self)
      end
    end

    module Lockable
      # Send unlock instructions by email
      def send_unlock_instructions
        ::Devise.mailer.delay.unlock_instructions(self)
      end
    end
  end
end

This solution, however, is too tied to the implementation of Devise and is therefore not a good one (besides being really really dirty).

The latest idea, which represents the solution I’ve used is implemented as follows: use the alias_method in this way:

#devise_async.rb
module Devise
  module Models
    module Confirmable
      alias_method :send_confirmation_instructions_without_delay, :send_confirmation_instructions
      handle_asynchronously :send_confirmation_instructions
    end

    module Recoverable
      alias_method :send_reset_password_instructions_without_delay, :send_reset_password_instructions
      handle_asynchronously :send_reset_password_instructions
    end

    module Lockable
      alias_method :send_unlock_instructions_without_delay, :send_unlock_instructions
      handle_asynchronously :send_unlock_instructions
    end
  end
end

This latest hack works a treat; is not the best but let you send mail with Devise asynchronously.

If you have any better solutions, do not hesitate to share!