Caching Laravel Package

Getting Started

• Install via Composer: composer require nette/caching
• First use case: Cache a simple expensive operation (e.g., database query result) to avoid redundant work:

  use Nette\Caching\Cache;
  use Nette\Caching\Storages\FileStorage;
  
  $storage = new FileStorage(__DIR__ . '/cache');
  $cache = new Cache($storage);
  
  $data = $cache->load('expensive_query', function (&$dependencies) {
      // Simulate expensive operation
      return ['result' => 'computed_data'];
  });
  

• Key files to inspect: Cache.php (core), Storages/ directory (backends: FileStorage, MemoryStorage, RedisStorage, etc.)
• Start with FileStorage for local development; switch to RedisStorage for production scaling.

Implementation Patterns

• Tag-based invalidation: Use tags to bust related cache entries at once:

  $cache->save('user_123_profile', $profileData, [
      Cache::TAGS => ['user-profiles', 'user_123']
  ]);
  // Later invalidate all user-related caches:
  $cache->clean([Cache::TAGS => ['user_123']]);
  

• Callback dependency tracking: Automatically expire cache when dependencies change (e.g., filemtime, database rows):

  $cache->load('config', function (&$dependencies) {
      $dependencies[Cache::EXPIRATION] = filemtime('config.yaml');
      return parse_yaml('config.yaml');
  });
  

• Cache as service in Laravel: Bind Nette\Caching\Cache as a singleton and inject into services or commands:

  // In AppServiceProvider
  $this->app->singleton(\Nette\Caching\Cache::class, function ($app) {
      return new Cache(new \Nette\Caching\Storages\PhpFilesStorage(storage_path('cache')));
  });
  

• Multi-layer caching: Combine MemoryStorage (request-scoped) + FileStorage (cross-request) for hot paths.

Gotchas and Tips

• Cache key restrictions: Keys must be strings; avoid special characters and length > 200 chars for compatibility (truncated silently in some backends).
• Expiration quirks: Cache::EXPIRATION accepts timestamps or relative strings (e.g., '+ 5 minutes'), but PHP’s strtotime() parsing applies — be cautious with daylight saving.
• Serialization: Cache values are serialized automatically (using Nette’s smart serialization); avoid caching closures or resources. Explicitly serialize with serialize() if custom control needed.
• Debugging: Enable Cache::getStorage()->getContext() logging; check generated cache files in storage/cache/ for keys/tags.
• Extend backends: Implement Nette\Caching\IStorage interface for custom backends (e.g., database, Memcached with stats).
• Laravel interoperability: Use nette/caching for non-Eloquent caching (e.g., API response caching, template precompilation) while keeping Laravel’s Cache facade for framework integration — avoid conflating the two systems.