It's quite simple, really - it lets you do something every specified interval of time. When supplied with a block, it yields the iteration count (starts at zero).

It requires 'active_support/time', so as to allow time intervals to be specified as 5.seconds, 6.7.days, etc. The 'every' method accepts non-zero numeric values (anything that responds to to_f).

If the operation inside the block takes longer than the specified interval, then the next iteration will begin immediately after the last.

To exit, simply break out of the loop.

require 'enat'

every 4.2.minutes do |i|
  puts "wheee! i've done this #{i} times!"
  break if i > 5
end

$ gem install enat