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Data Caching

Data caching is about storing some PHP variable in cache and retrieving it later from cache. For this purpose, the cache component base class CCache provides two methods that are used most of the time: set() and get().

To store a variable $value in cache, we choose a unique ID and call set() to store it:

Yii::app()->cache->set($id, $value);

The cached data will remain in the cache forever unless it is removed because of some caching policy (e.g. caching space is full and the oldest data are removed). To change this behavior, we can also supply an expiration parameter when calling set() so that the data will be removed from the cache after, at most, that period of time:

// keep the value in cache for at most 30 seconds
Yii::app()->cache->set($id, $value, 30);

Later when we need to access this variable (in either the same or a different Web request), we call get() with the ID to retrieve it from cache. If the returned value is false, it means the value is not available in cache and we have to regenerate it.

$value=Yii::app()->cache->get($id);
if($value===false)
{
    // regenerate $value because it is not found in cache
    // and save it in cache for later use:
    // Yii::app()->cache->set($id,$value);
}

When choosing the ID for a variable to be cached, make sure the ID is unique among all other variables that may be cached in the application. It is NOT required that the ID is unique across applications because the cache component is intelligent enough to differentiate IDs for different applications.

Some cache storages, such as MemCache, APC, support retrieving multiple cached values in a batch mode, which may reduce the overhead involved in retrieving cached data. A method named mget() is provided to achieve this feature. In case the underlying cache storage does not support this feature, mget() will still simulate it.

To remove a cached value from cache, call delete(); and to remove everything from cache, call flush(). Be very careful when calling flush() because it also removes cached data that are from other applications.

Tip: Because CCache implements ArrayAccess, a cache component can be used liked an array. The followings are some examples:

$cache=Yii::app()->cache;
$cache['var1']=$value1;  // equivalent to: $cache->set('var1',$value1);
$value2=$cache['var2'];  // equivalent to: $value2=$cache->get('var2');

1. Cache Dependency

Besides expiration setting, cached data may also be invalidated according to some dependency changes. For example, if we are caching the content of some file and the file is changed, we should invalidate the cached copy and read the latest content from the file instead of the cache.

We represent a dependency as an instance of CCacheDependency or its child class. We pass the dependency instance along with the data to be cached when calling set().

// the value will expire in 30 seconds
// it may also be invalidated earlier if the dependent file is changed
Yii::app()->cache->set($id, $value, 30, new CFileCacheDependency('FileName'));

Now if we retrieve $value from cache by calling get(), the dependency will be evaluated and if it is changed, we will get a false value, indicating the data needs to be regenerated.

Below is a summary of the available cache dependencies:

2. Query Caching

Since version 1.1.7, Yii has added support for query caching. Built on top of data caching, query caching stores the result of a DB query in cache and may thus save the DB query execution time if the same query is requested in future, as the result can be directly served from the cache.

Info: Some DBMS (e.g. MySQL) also support query caching on the DB server side. Compared with the server-side query caching, the same feature we support here offers more flexibility and may be potentially more efficient.

Enabling Query Caching

To enable query caching, make sure CDbConnection::queryCacheID refers to the ID of a valid cache application component (it defaults to cache).

Using Query Caching with DAO

To use query caching, we call the CDbConnection::cache() method when we perform DB queries. The following is an example:

$sql = 'SELECT * FROM tbl_post LIMIT 20';
$dependency = new CDbCacheDependency('SELECT MAX(update_time) FROM tbl_post');
$rows = Yii::app()->db->cache(1000, $dependency)->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();

When running the above statements, Yii will first check if the cache contains a valid result for the SQL statement to be executed. This is done by checking the following three conditions:

  • if the cache contains an entry indexed by the SQL statement.
  • if the entry is not expired (less than 1000 seconds since it was first saved in the cache).
  • if the dependency has not changed (the maximum update_time value is the same as when the query result was saved in the cache).

If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the cached result will be returned directly from the cache. Otherwise, the SQL statement will be sent to the DB server for execution, and the corresponding result will be saved in the cache and returned.

Using Query Caching with ActiveRecord

Query caching can also be used with Active Record. To do so, we call a similar CActiveRecord::cache() method like the following:

$dependency = new CDbCacheDependency('SELECT MAX(update_time) FROM tbl_post');
$posts = Post::model()->cache(1000, $dependency)->findAll();
// relational AR query
$posts = Post::model()->cache(1000, $dependency)->with('author')->findAll();

The cache() method here is essentially a shortcut to CDbConnection::cache(). Internally, when executing the SQL statement generated by ActiveRecord, Yii will attempt to use query caching as we described in the last subsection.

Caching Multiple Queries

By default, each time we call the cache() method (of either CDbConnection or CActiveRecord), it will mark the next SQL query to be cached. Any other SQL queries will NOT be cached unless we call cache() again. For example,

$sql = 'SELECT * FROM tbl_post LIMIT 20';
$dependency = new CDbCacheDependency('SELECT MAX(update_time) FROM tbl_post');
 
$rows = Yii::app()->db->cache(1000, $dependency)->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();
// query caching will NOT be used
$rows = Yii::app()->db->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();

By supplying an extra $queryCount parameter to the cache() method, we can enforce multiple queries to use query caching. In the following example, when we call cache(), we specify that query caching should be used for the next 2 queries:

// ...
$rows = Yii::app()->db->cache(1000, $dependency, 2)->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();
// query caching WILL be used
$rows = Yii::app()->db->createCommand($sql)->queryAll();

As we know, when performing a relational AR query, it is possible several SQL queries will be executed (by checking the log messages). For example, if the relationship between Post and Comment is HAS_MANY, then the following code will actually execute two DB queries:

  • it first selects the posts limited by 20;
  • it then selects the comments for the previously selected posts.
$posts = Post::model()->with('comments')->findAll(array(
    'limit'=>20,
));

If we use query caching as follows, only the first DB query will be cached:

$posts = Post::model()->cache(1000, $dependency)->with('comments')->findAll(array(
    'limit'=>20,
));

In order to cache both DB queries, we need supply the extra parameter indicating how many DB queries we want to cache next:

$posts = Post::model()->cache(1000, $dependency, 2)->with('comments')->findAll(array(
    'limit'=>20,
));

Limitations

Query caching does not work with query results that contain resource handles. For example, when using the BLOB column type in some DBMS, the query result will return a resource handle for the column data.

Some caching storage has size limitation. For example, memcache limits the maximum size of each entry to be 1MB. Therefore, if the size of a query result exceeds this limit, the caching will fail.

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