Calling a goroutine from an http.HandlerFunc - Is it safe / idiomatic?

[jhngrant (John Grant)]

Can a HTTP request handler be used to fire off a long running task simply by using a goroutine?

I’d like to be able to return a response immediately while another function continues to run for a few seconds:

func startJob(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request)  {
	go longRunning("Do this job")

	dump, _ := httputil.DumpRequest(r, true)
	fmt.Fprintf(w, dump)
}

func longRunning(msg string)  {
	time.Sleep(5 * time.Second)
	fmt.Println(msg)
}

[nathankerr]

Yes.

However, it might be better to send your long running jobs into a queue so you can control how many of those jobs are running. This will give you a way to limit the resources used by long running jobs allowing you to keep your server responsive.

[jhngrant (John Grant)]

nathankerr thanks for the clarification and for taking the time to suggest queuing.