How can I schedule recurring scraping tasks with Pholcus?

Pholcus is a distributed, high-concurrency, and powerful web crawler software written in Go language. It is primarily used for web scraping tasks. However, Pholcus itself does not have a built-in feature to schedule recurring scraping tasks. To schedule recurring tasks, you would typically use an external scheduler like cron on Unix-like systems or Task Scheduler on Windows.

Here's how you can schedule a recurring task with cron on a Unix-like system:

1. Create a Pholcus scraping script: Write your Pholcus scraping logic in a .go file and compile it into an executable. For example, let's name it mypholcusapp.

2. Open your crontab: Open your crontab file for editing by running the following command in the terminal:

   crontab -e

1. Add a cron job: In the crontab file, add a line that specifies the schedule and the command to run your Pholcus scraping application. Here is the syntax for a cron job: * * * * * /path/to/command arg1 arg2 The five asterisks represent different date/time parts:
   • Minute (0 - 59)
   • Hour (0 - 23)
   • Day of the month (1 - 31)
   • Month (1 - 12)
   • Day of the week (0 - 7) where both 0 and 7 represent Sunday

Suppose you want to run your scraping task every day at 3 AM: 0 3 * * * /path/to/mypholcusapp

Replace /path/to/mypholcusapp with the actual path to your compiled Pholcus application.

1. Save and exit the crontab: After adding the cron job, save the file and exit the editor. The cron daemon will automatically pick up the new job and run it according to the schedule you've set.

If you're working on a Windows system, you can use the Task Scheduler to set up a recurring task:

1. Compile your Pholcus application: As with Unix-like systems, compile your Pholcus script into an executable file.

2. Open Task Scheduler: You can access Task Scheduler by searching for it in the Start menu or by running taskschd.msc from the Run dialog (Win + R).

3. Create a new task: In the Task Scheduler, create a new task and set the trigger to the time and frequency you want your scraping task to run.

4. Set the action: Define an action to start a program, and browse to select the compiled Pholcus executable as the program/script to run.

5. Finalize the setup: Go through the rest of the prompts to configure any additional settings and finish setting up the scheduled task.

Please note that when scheduling web scraping tasks, always consider the website's terms of service and scraping policies to ensure that you are not violating any rules or causing excess load on the server. Additionally, it's a good practice to include error handling and logging in your Pholcus application to manage any issues that might arise during scheduled runs.