Running a maximum of two go routines continuously forever - go

Question

I'm trying to run a function concurrently. It makes a call to my DB that may take 2-10 seconds. I would like it to continue on to the next routine once it has finished, even if the other one is still processing, but only ever want it be processing a max of 2 at a time. I want this to happen indefinitely. I feel like I'm almost there, but waitGroup forces both routines to wait until completion prior to continuing to another iteration.
const ROUTINES = 2;
for {
var wg sync.WaitGroup
_, err:= db.Exec(`Random DB Call`)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
ch := createRoutines(db, &wg)
wg.Add(ROUTINES)
for i := 1; i <= ROUTINES; i++ {
ch <- i
time.Sleep(2 * time.Second)
}
close(ch)
wg.Wait()
}
func createRoutines(db *sqlx.DB, wg *sync.WaitGroup) chan int {
var ch = make(chan int, 5)
for i := 0; i < ROUTINES ; i++ {
go func(db *sqlx.DB) {
defer wg.Done()
for {
_, ok := <-ch
if !ok {
return
}
doStuff(db)
}
}(db)
}
return ch
}

Answer 1

If you need to only have n number of goroutines running at the same time, you can have a buffered channel of size n and use that to block creating new goroutines when there is no space left, something like this
package main
import (
"fmt"
"math/rand"
"time"
)
func main() {
const ROUTINES = 2
rand.Seed(time.Now().UnixNano())
stopper := make(chan struct{}, ROUTINES)
var counter int
for {
counter++
stopper <- struct{}{}
go func(c int) {
fmt.Println("+ Starting goroutine", c)
time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Intn(3)) * time.Second)
fmt.Println("- Stopping goroutine", c)
<-stopper
}(counter)
}
}
In this example you see how you can only have ROUTINES number of goroutines that live 0, 1 or 2 seconds. In the output you can also see how every time one goroutine ends another one starts.

Answer 2

This adds an external dependency, but consider this implementation:
package main
import (
"context"
"database/sql"
"log"
"github.com/MicahParks/ctxerrpool"
)
func main() {
// Create a pool of 2 workers for database queries. Log any errors.
databasePool := ctxerrpool.New(2, func(_ ctxerrpool.Pool, err error) {
log.Printf("Failed to execute database query.\nError: %s", err.Error())
})
// Get a list of queries to execute.
queries := []string{
"SELECT first_name, last_name FROM customers",
"SELECT price FROM inventory WHERE sku='1234'",
"other queries...",
}
// TODO Make a database connection.
var db *sql.DB
for _, query := range queries {
// Intentionally shadow the looped variable for scope.
query := query
// Perform the query on a worker. If no worker is ready, it will block until one is.
databasePool.AddWorkItem(context.TODO(), func(workCtx context.Context) (err error) {
_, err = db.ExecContext(workCtx, query)
return err
})
}
// Wait for all workers to finish.
databasePool.Wait()
}