doctrine2/en/reference/caching.rst

Caching
=======

Doctrine provides cache drivers in the ``Common`` package for some
of the most popular caching implementations such as APC, Memcache
and Xcache. We also provide an ``ArrayCache`` driver which stores
the data in a PHP array. Obviously, the cache does not live between
requests but this is useful for testing in a development
environment.

Cache Drivers
-------------

The cache drivers follow a simple interface that is defined in
``Doctrine\Common\Cache\Cache``. All the cache drivers extend a
base class ``Doctrine\Common\Cache\AbstractCache`` which implements
the before mentioned interface.

The interface defines the following methods for you to publicly
use.


-  fetch($id) - Fetches an entry from the cache.
-  contains($id) - Test if an entry exists in the cache.
-  save($id, $data, $lifeTime = false) - Puts data into the cache.
-  delete($id) - Deletes a cache entry.

Each driver extends the ``AbstractCache`` class which defines a few
abstract protected methods that each of the drivers must
implement.


-  \_doFetch($id)
-  \_doContains($id)
-  \_doSave($id, $data, $lifeTime = false)
-  \_doDelete($id)

The public methods ``fetch()``, ``contains()``, etc. utilize the
above protected methods that are implemented by the drivers. The
code is organized this way so that the protected methods in the
drivers do the raw interaction with the cache implementation and
the ``AbstractCache`` can build custom functionality on top of
these methods.

APC
~~~

In order to use the APC cache driver you must have it compiled and
enabled in your php.ini. You can read about APC
`in the PHP Documentation <http://us2.php.net/apc>`_. It will give
you a little background information about what it is and how you
can use it as well as how to install it.

Below is a simple example of how you could use the APC cache driver
by itself.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver = new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache();
    $cacheDriver->save('cache_id', 'my_data');

Memcache
~~~~~~~~

In order to use the Memcache cache driver you must have it compiled
and enabled in your php.ini. You can read about Memcache
` on the PHP website <http://us2.php.net/memcache>`_. It will
give you a little background information about what it is and how
you can use it as well as how to install it.

Below is a simple example of how you could use the Memcache cache
driver by itself.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $memcache = new Memcache();
    $memcache->connect('memcache_host', 11211);
    
    $cacheDriver = new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\MemcacheCache();
    $cacheDriver->setMemcache($memcache);
    $cacheDriver->save('cache_id', 'my_data');

Xcache
~~~~~~

In order to use the Xcache cache driver you must have it compiled
and enabled in your php.ini. You can read about Xcache
`here <http://xcache.lighttpd.net/>`_. It will give you a little
background information about what it is and how you can use it as
well as how to install it.

Below is a simple example of how you could use the Xcache cache
driver by itself.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver = new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\XcacheCache();
    $cacheDriver->save('cache_id', 'my_data');

Using Cache Drivers
-------------------

In this section we'll describe how you can fully utilize the API of
the cache drivers to save cache, check if some cache exists, fetch
the cached data and delete the cached data. We'll use the
``ArrayCache`` implementation as our example here.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver = new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ArrayCache();

Saving
~~~~~~

To save some data to the cache driver it is as simple as using the
``save()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver->save('cache_id', 'my_data');

The ``save()`` method accepts three arguments which are described
below.


-  ``$id`` - The cache id
-  ``$data`` - The cache entry/data.
-  ``$lifeTime`` - The lifetime. If != false, sets a specific
   lifetime for this cache entry (null => infinite lifeTime).

You can save any type of data whether it be a string, array,
object, etc.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $array = array(
        'key1' => 'value1',
        'key2' => 'value2'
    );
    $cacheDriver->save('my_array', $array);

Checking
~~~~~~~~

Checking whether some cache exists is very simple, just use the
``contains()`` method. It accepts a single argument which is the ID
of the cache entry.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    if ($cacheDriver->contains('cache_id')) {
        echo 'cache exists';
    } else {
        echo 'cache does not exist';
    }

Fetching
~~~~~~~~

Now if you want to retrieve some cache entry you can use the
``fetch()`` method. It also accepts a single argument just like
``contains()`` which is the ID of the cache entry.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $array = $cacheDriver->fetch('my_array');

Deleting
~~~~~~~~

As you might guess, deleting is just as easy as saving, checking
and fetching. We have a few ways to delete cache entries. You can
delete by an individual ID, regular expression, prefix, suffix or
you can delete all entries.

By Cache ID
^^^^^^^^^^^

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver->delete('my_array');

You can also pass wild cards to the ``delete()`` method and it will
return an array of IDs that were matched and deleted.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $deleted = $cacheDriver->delete('users_*');

By Regular Expression
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you need a little more control than wild cards you can use a PHP
regular expression to delete cache entries.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $deleted = $cacheDriver->deleteByRegex('/users_.*/');

By Prefix
^^^^^^^^^

Because regular expressions are kind of slow, if simply deleting by
a prefix or suffix is sufficient, it is recommended that you do
that instead of using a regular expression because it will be much
faster if you have many cache entries.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $deleted = $cacheDriver->deleteByPrefix('users_');

By Suffix
^^^^^^^^^

Just like we did above with the prefix you can do the same with a
suffix.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $deleted = $cacheDriver->deleteBySuffix('_my_account');

All
^^^

If you simply want to delete all cache entries you can do so with
the ``deleteAll()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $deleted = $cacheDriver->deleteAll();

Counting
~~~~~~~~

If you want to count how many entries are stored in the cache
driver instance you can use the ``count()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    echo $cacheDriver->count();

.. note::

    In order to use ``deleteByRegex()``, ``deleteByPrefix()``,
    ``deleteBySuffix()``, ``deleteAll()``, ``count()`` or ``getIds()``
    you must enable an option for the cache driver to manage your cache
    IDs internally. This is necessary because APC, Memcache, etc. don't
    have any advanced functionality for fetching and deleting. We add
    some functionality on top of the cache drivers to maintain an index
    of all the IDs stored in the cache driver so that we can allow more
    granular deleting operations.

    ::

        <?php
        $cacheDriver->setManageCacheIds(true);


Namespaces
~~~~~~~~~~

If you heavily use caching in your application and utilize it in
multiple parts of your application, or use it in different
applications on the same server you may have issues with cache
naming collisions. This can be worked around by using namespaces.
You can set the namespace a cache driver should use by using the
``setNamespace()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $cacheDriver->setNamespace('my_namespace_');

Integrating with the ORM
------------------------

The Doctrine ORM package is tightly integrated with the cache
drivers to allow you to improve performance of various aspects of
Doctrine by just simply making some additional configurations and
method calls.

Query Cache
~~~~~~~~~~~

It is highly recommended that in a production environment you cache
the transformation of a DQL query to its SQL counterpart. It
doesn't make sense to do this parsing multiple times as it doesn't
change unless you alter the DQL query.

This can be done by configuring the query cache implementation to
use on your ORM configuration.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $config = new \Doctrine\ORM\Configuration();
    $config->setQueryCacheImpl(new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache());

Result Cache
~~~~~~~~~~~~

The result cache can be used to cache the results of your queries
so that we don't have to query the database or hydrate the data
again after the first time. You just need to configure the result
cache implementation.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $config->setResultCacheImpl(new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache());

Now when you're executing DQL queries you can configure them to use
the result cache.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $query = $em->createQuery('select u from \Entities\User u');
    $query->useResultCache(true);

You can also configure an individual query to use a different
result cache driver.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $query->setResultCacheDriver(new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache());

.. note::

    Setting the result cache driver on the query will
    automatically enable the result cache for the query. If you want to
    disable it pass false to ``useResultCache()``.

    ::

        <?php
        $query->useResultCache(false);


If you want to set the time the cache has to live you can use the
``setResultCacheLifetime()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $query->setResultCacheLifetime(3600);

The ID used to store the result set cache is a hash which is
automatically generated for you if you don't set a custom ID
yourself with the ``setResultCacheId()`` method.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $query->setResultCacheId('my_custom_id');

You can also set the lifetime and cache ID by passing the values as
the second and third argument to ``useResultCache()``.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $query->useResultCache(true, 3600, 'my_custom_id');

Metadata Cache
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your class metadata can be parsed from a few different sources like
YAML, XML, Annotations, etc. Instead of parsing this information on
each request we should cache it using one of the cache drivers.

Just like the query and result cache we need to configure it
first.

.. code-block:: php

    <?php
    $config->setMetadataCacheImpl(new \Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache());

Now the metadata information will only be parsed once and stored in
the cache driver.

Clearing the Cache
------------------

We've already shown you previously how you can use the API of the
cache drivers to manually delete cache entries. For your
convenience we offer a command line task for you to help you with
clearing the query, result and metadata cache.

From the Doctrine command line you can run the following command.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache

Running this task with no arguments will clear all the cache for
all the configured drivers. If you want to be more specific about
what you clear you can use the following options.

To clear the query cache use the ``--query`` option.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --query

To clear the metadata cache use the ``--metadata`` option.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --metadata

To clear the result cache use the ``--result`` option.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --result

When you use the ``--result`` option you can use some other options
to be more specific about what queries result sets you want to
clear.

Just like the API of the cache drivers you can clear based on an
ID, regular expression, prefix or suffix.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --result --id=cache_id

Or if you want to clear based on a regular expressions.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --result --regex=users_.*

Or with a prefix.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --result --prefix=users_

And finally with a suffix.

.. code-block:: php

    $ ./doctrine clear-cache --result --suffix=_my_account

.. note::

    Using the ``--id``, ``--regex``, etc. options with the
    ``--query`` and ``--metadata`` are not allowed as it is not
    necessary to be specific about what you clear. You only ever need
    to completely clear the cache to remove stale entries.


Cache Slams
-----------

Something to be careful of when utilizing the cache drivers is
cache slams. If you have a heavily trafficked website with some
code that checks for the existence of a cache record and if it does
not exist it generates the information and saves it to the cache.
Now if 100 requests were issued all at the same time and each one
sees the cache does not exist and they all try and insert the same
cache entry it could lock up APC, Xcache, etc. and cause problems.
Ways exist to work around this, like pre-populating your cache and
not letting your users requests populate the cache.

You can read more about cache slams
`in this blog post <http://t3.dotgnu.info/blog/php/user-cache-timebomb>`_.