react-native-workers

Spin worker threads and run CPU intensive tasks in the background. Bonus point on Android you can keep a worker alive even when a user quit the application 🎆

Features

• JS web workers for iOS and Android
• access to native modules (network, geolocation, storage ...)
• Android Services in JS 🎉

Installation

npm install react-native-workers --save

Automatic setup

simply rnpm link react-native-workers and you'r good to go.

Manual setup

iOS

1. Open your project in XCode, right click on Libraries and click Add Files to "Your Project Name". Look under node_modules/react-native-workers/ios and add Workers.xcodeproj
2. Add libWorkers.a to Build Phases -> Link Binary With Libraries

Android

in android/settings.gradle

 include ':app', ':react-native-workers'
 project(':react-native-workers').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/react-native-workers/android')

in android/app/build.gradle add:

dependencies {
   ...
   compile project(':react-native-workers')
}

and finally, in your MainApplication.java add:

 
import co.apptailor.Worker.WorkerPackage; // <--- This! 
 
public class MainApplication extends Application implements ReactApplication {
 
private final ReactNativeHost mReactNativeHost = new ReactNativeHost(this) {
    @Override
    protected boolean getUseDeveloperSupport() {
      return BuildConfig.DEBUG;
    }
 
    @Override
    protected List<ReactPackage> getPackages() {
      return Arrays.<ReactPackage>asList(
          new MainReactPackage(),
          new WorkerPackage() // <--- and this 
      );
    }
  };
 
  @Override
  public ReactNativeHost getReactNativeHost() {
      return mReactNativeHost;
  }
}
 

Note: only the official react native modules are available from your workers (vibration, fetch, etc...). To include additional modules in your workers add them to the WorkerPackage constructor. Like this:

new WorkerPackage(new MyAwesomePackage(), new MyAmazingPackage())`

JS API

From your application:

import { Worker } from 'react-native-workers';
 
/* start worker */
const worker = new Worker("path/to/worker.js");
 
/* post message to worker. String only ! */
worker.postMessage("hello from application");
 
/* get message from worker. String only ! */
worker.onmessage = (message) => {
 
}
 
/* stop worker */
worker.terminate();
 

From your worker js file:

import { self } from 'react-native-workers';
 
/* get message from application. String only ! */
self.onmessage = (message) => {
}
 
/* post message to application. String only ! */
self.postMessage("hello from worker");

Lifecycle

• the workers are paused when the app enters in the background
• the workers are resumed once the app is running in the foreground
• During development, when you reload the main JS bundle (shake device -> Reload) the workers are killed

Todo

• Android - download worker files from same location as main bundle
• iOS - download worker files from same location as main bundle
• script to package worker files for release build
• load worker files from disk if not debug