10.14.1. ProblemYou don't want to rerun potentially expensive database queries when the results haven't changed. 10.14.2. SolutionUse PEAR's Cache_Lite package. It makes it simple to cache arbitrary data. In this case, cache the results of a SELECT query and use the text of the query as a cache key. Example 10-39 shows how to cache query results with Cache_Lite. Caching query results
10.14.3. DiscussionCache_Lite is a generic, lightweight mechanism for caching arbitrary information. It uses files to store the information it's caching. The Cache_Lite constructor takes an array of options that control its behavior. The two most important ones in Example 10-39 are automaticSerialization, which makes it easier to store arrays in the cache, and cacheDir, which defines where the cache files go. Make sure cacheDir ends with a /. The cache is just a mapping of keys to values. It's up to us to make sure that we supply a cache key that uniquely identifies the data we want to cache'in this case, the SQL query and the parameters bound to it. The cache_key function computes an appropriate key. After that, Example 10-39 just checks to see if the results are already in the cache. If not, it executes the query against the database and stuffs the results in the cache for next time. Note that you can't put a PDO or PDOStatement object in the cache'you have to fetch results and then put the results in the cache. By default, entries stay in the cache for one hour. You can adjust this by passing a different value (in seconds) as the lifeTime option when creating a new Cache_Lite object. Pass in null if you don't want data to automatically expire. The cache isn't altered if you change the database with an INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE query. If there are cached SELECT statements that refer to data no longer in the database, you need to explicitly remove everything from the cache with the Cache_Lite::clean( ) method. You can also remove an individual element from the cache by passing a cache key to Cache_Lite::remove( ). The cache_key( ) function in Example 10-39 is case sensitive. This means that if the results of SELECT * FROM zodiac are in the cache, and you run the query SELECT * from zodiac, the results aren't found in the cache and the query is run again. Maintaining consistent capitalization, spacing, and field ordering when constructing your SQL queries results in more efficient cache usage. 10.14.4. See AlsoDocumentation on Cache_Lite found at http://pear.php.net/manual/en/package.caching.cache-lite.php. |