edit

Cache

This class represents F3's multi protocol Cache engine. It supports Memcache, WinCache, APC, XCache, Redis and filesystem based caching.

Caching is a powerful way to get more performance out of your application. It is seamlessly integrated to all core and plugin features like setting hive keys, HTTP responses, DB mappers and queries and even to JS/CSS minification.

There is a good Cache Engine User Guide that covers how the cache engine works and gives you tips to improve your application and your database queries, as they can be cached by F3 as well. You really should have read it.

Namespace: \
File location: lib/base.php


Instantiation

Return class instance

$cache = \Cache::instance();

The Cache engine is deactivated by default. To activate it using an auto-detected cache backend, simply set the CACHE system var to TRUE. See the load() function below for additional configuration.

The Cache class uses the Prefab factory wrapper, so you are able to grab the same instance of that class at any point of your code.

set

Store a key/value pair in the cache

mixed|FALSE set( string $key, mixed $val [, int $ttl = 0 ] )

If $ttl is 0 then the entry is saved for an infinite time. Otherwise, the specified time, in seconds, is used as TTL.

NB: Already cached keys will be updated by reusing the old expiration time! See issue #237 for details.

exists

Check if a cache entry exists: Return timestamp and TTL of cache entry or FALSE if not found

array|FALSE exists( string $key [, mixed &$val = NULL ] )

Returns an array containing the elements [0] creation timestamp and [1] time-to-live (TTL, in seconds) of the cache entry; or FALSE if it was not found.

$cache->set('foo','bar',5);

var_dump($cache->exists('foo'));
/* returns
array(2) {
  [0]=>  float(1369257446.4874)
  [1]=>  int(5)
}
*/

You can use the $val argument to fetch the cache entry content as well. This could save an additional get call to the cache backend.

if ($cache->exists('foo',$value)) {
    echo $value; // bar
}

get

Retrieve value of a cache entry

mixed|FALSE get( string $key )

clear

Delete a cache entry

bool clear( string $key )

reset

Clear contents of the cache backend

bool reset( [ string $suffix = NULL [, int $lifetime = 0 ] )

You can use $suffix to only clear cache entries with a suffix that matches this string.

Set $lifetime in seconds to only delete entries that are older than this time.

You can also use $f3->clear('CACHE') as a shortcut to this.

Limitations:
  • when using XCache, all entries are cleared, no matter the value of $suffix.
  • when using Memcached via the memcache extension, the cachedump stat should be enabled (no -X flag), otherwise the command won't work. The memcached extension doesn't have this limitation.

load

Load/auto-detect cache backend. Return the cache DSN

string load( string|bool $dsn )

Possible configurations for $dsn are:

  • apc
  • wincache
  • xcache
  • memcache=localhost:11211
  • redis=localhost
  • folder=tmp/cache/

You can set $dsn to TRUE to trigger the auto-detection feature, using the filesystem as a fallback when no shared memory engine has been detected or is available.

You can set $dsn to FALSE to totally disable caching.

Returns the cache DSN of the cache in use (specified or auto-detected).