nicholasdejong.com

UPDATE: this Behavior is now a Plugin, making it even easier to use - check it out here:-
* https://github.com/ndejong/CakephpAutocachePlugin

Q: What's this all about?
A: AutocacheBehavior is a CakePHP 2x Behavior that makes query caching as easy as adding a 'cache'=>true condition to your find statement.

Q: How do I use it?
A: (Step 1) - copy/symlink into place Model/Behavior/AutocacheBehavior.php

(Step 2) - copy/symlink into place Model/Datasource/AutocacheSource.php

(Step 3) - add the $autocache datasource to Config/database.php like this:-

public $dummy = array('datasource' => 'AutocacheSource');

(Step 4) - define at least one cache configuration to use in core.php or bootstrap.php, call your first one 'default' like this:-

Cache::config('default', array('engine' => 'File'));

(Step 5) - Tell your model(s) they $actsAs Autocache by adding this:-

public $actsAs = array('Autocache');

(Step 6) - add a 'cache' condition to your find query

(Step 7) - drink a beer, 'cause that was easy!

Q: Do you have any examples?
A: Yep, take a look at exampleApp - go ahead and install it, give it a spin!

Q: What are my options for attaching this Behavior to my models?
A: Just like any other Behavior you can use the following approachs
- Attach through the controller with something that looks like this:-

$this->ModelName->Behaviors->attach('Autocache');

- Attach through the Model by declaring the $actsAs attribute like this:-

public $actsAs = array('Autocache');

- Check out your other options here because there are others:-
http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/models/behaviors.html

Q: What Autocache Behavior settings exist?
A: There are just three, they are:-
- default_cache << defines the default cache configuration name to use when a find query contains a 'cache' condition without an explicit cache configuration name. By default the name is 'default'
- check_cache << tells Autocache to check if the cache configuration name that is about to be used has actually been defined, this helps to prevent silly mistakes. By default this is set true
- dummy_datasource << defines the dummy datastore name that needs to be defined in your database.php file. By default it's named 'dummy'

Q: What are the find query condition cache parameters available?
A: There are three in total, they are in the form:-

- $conditions = array('cache'=>true)
- $conditions = array('cache'=>'default')
- $conditions = array('cache'=>array('config'=>'default'))
- $conditions = array('cache'=>array('name'=>'some_name'))
- $conditions = array('cache'=>array('flush'=>true))

The first three are essentially the same thing expressed differently

Q: How does Autocache name cached data?
A: Take a look at _generateCacheName() the crux of the matter is that we take the all query parameters, serialize them and take a hash of the result thus ensuring a useful unique name per query - yes, there is overhead in doing this but it's still less than doing a database query!

Q: What's AutocacheSource (DummySource) all about?
A: In order to prevent the CakePHP Model class from making a full request to the database when we have a cached result we need a way to quickly cause the find() query to return with nothing so we can re-inject the result in the afterFind() callback - it's unfortunate this behavior requires more than one .php file, but that's the way it is - still much tider than the previous approach that involved cutting'n'pasting code into the AppModel.

Q: What's the history?
A: AutocacheBehavior is an improvement on "Automatic model data caching for CakePHP" that I wrote a while back which itself borrowed from "jamienay"
- nicholasdejong.com/story/automatic-model-data-caching-cakephp
- github.com/jamienay/automatic_query_caching

Download tarball here

Or head over to GitHub here:-
https://github.com/ndejong/CakephpAutocacheBehavior