CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.jspuppeteer
hretic
hretic

Reputation: 1085

having puppeteer browser as global instance open at all time vs using new browser instance for each request

i have some web addresses in my db , i need to check these addresses for something and updated them in the db accordingly ... i need to do this over and over

here is simplified version of my code , i have two functions

1 - init -> reads an address row from db , pass the address to second function to check and update the result in db for that address

2 - check_address -> checking that address in the browser and returning the result

here is simplified version of my code

async function init()
{
    try
    {
        let address = 'select * from addressess order by updated_at asc limit 1';
        let result = await check_address(address);
        await address.update({result : result });

    }
    catch(e){}

    setTimeout( ()=> init() , 5000 );
}


async function check_address( address )
{
    var browser = await puppeteer.launch();
    let result = await 'open a tab  , go to the address and cehck';
    // close the browser
    return result ;
}

init();

i feel like opening and closing browser for each address is very time/resource consuming , so i thought maybe i could have a global browser open at all time and just open and close tabs in the browser or maybe even use the same tab ... something like

let globalBrowser = false ;
async function check_address( address )
{
    if(!globalBrowser)
    {
        globalBrowser = await puppeteer.launch();
        globalBrowser._process.once('close', () => {
            globalBrowser = false;
        });
    }

    let result = await 'open a tab  , go to the address and cehck';
    return result ;
}

but im not sure if having a browser open at all time is ok , or this flow generally is a good idea

i have very limited experience with puppeteer , i would love some input from someone with more experience and knowledge of long running puppeteer app

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1242

Answers (1)

amarinediary
amarinediary

Reputation: 5449

Indeed, opening and closing the browser is performanced heavy. If your script is running on a server you could open the browser initially and do a cron job (@package node-cron) every X hours on the check_adress function.

Instead of closing the browser you could simply close the current page page via:

await page.close();

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions