Programming Tutorials

react-native-background-job alternative in expo app

By: Terrence in React-Native Tutorials on 2023-04-17  

react-native-background-job is a library used for running background jobs or tasks in a React Native application. However, since Expo manages a lot of native modules for you, you cannot use this library directly in your Expo app as it requires native code changes.

Instead, Expo offers a similar feature called TaskManager which allows you to run background tasks in your Expo app. TaskManager provides you with a simple API to register and manage background tasks in your app. You can use this feature to run periodic tasks, long-running tasks, and geofencing.

Here is an example of how to use TaskManager in an Expo app:

import { TaskManager } from 'expo-task-manager';

const BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME = 'my-background-task';

TaskManager.defineTask(BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME, async () => {
  // Run your background task here
});

// Start the background task
TaskManager.isTaskDefined(BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME).then(isDefined => {
  if (isDefined) {
    console.log(`Task ${BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME} is already defined`);
  } else {
    TaskManager.defineTask(BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME, async () => {
      // Run your background task here
    });
  }
  TaskManager.getRegisteredTasksAsync().then(tasks => {
    console.log('Registered tasks:', tasks);
    if (tasks.find(f => f.taskName === BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME) === undefined) {
      console.log('Registering background task:', BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME);
      TaskManager.registerTaskAsync(BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME);
    }
  });
});

// Stop the background task
TaskManager.unregisterTaskAsync(BACKGROUND_TASK_NAME);

This example defines a background task named my-background-task and registers it with TaskManager. You can also stop the background task by calling the unregisterTaskAsync method.

Note that background tasks will only run when the app is in the background or when the device is idle. Also, the TaskManager API is only available on Expo SDK version 38 or later.