How to cache in Symfony 2?

Question

I need to cache some application specific data using Symfony 2's caching system so that I can run cache:clear to clear it. All the cache relies under app/cache but how do I actually go about caching data?

http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/index.html

The only topic I see is about HTML caching with Varnish.

Solution 1

If you are using Doctrine already just use those cache classes.

Add a service to config.yml:

services:
    cache:
        class: Doctrine\Common\Cache\ApcCache

And use it in your controller:

if ($fooString = $this->get('cache')->fetch('foo')) {
    $foo = unserialize($fooString);
} else {
    // do the work
    $this->get('cache')->save('foo', serialize($foo));
}

Solution 2

Simple way use Doctrine cache providers. At first, register service(sample in config.yml):

services:
    memcached:
        class: Memcached
        calls:
            - [ addServer, ['localhost', 11211] ]
    memcached_cache:
        class: Doctrine\Common\Cache\MemcachedCache
        calls:
            - [ setMemcached, [@memcached] ]

Then to use get service, for example in controler:

$cache = $this->get('memcached_cache');

to send in another service use calls:

calls:
    - [ setCacheProvider, [@memcached_cache] ]

or arguments:

arguments:
    - @memcached_cache

In the same way, you can use other interfaces of Doctrine Cache package. Doctrine Cache provides a very simple interface for which several out of the box implementations are provided:

• ApcCache (requires ext/apc)
• ArrayCache (in memory, lifetime of the request)
• FilesystemCache (not optimal for high concurrency)
• MemcacheCache (requires ext/memcache)
• MemcachedCache (requires ext/memcached)
• PhpFileCache (not optimal for high concurrency)
• RedisCache.php (requires ext/phpredis)
• WinCacheCache.php (requires ext/wincache)
• XcacheCache.php (requires ext/xcache)
• ZendDataCache.php (requires Zend Server Platform)

If you do not already use Doctrine, you may require Common Library for Doctrine projects: php composer.phar require doctrine/common or require only Caching library offering an object-oriented API for many cache backends: php composer.phar require doctrine/cache

How to use Doctrine Caching you can read in Doctrine Common documentation on Doctrine Project web site

Solution 3

Symfony 3.1 provide a new Cache component.

Solution 4

Symfony2 does not provide any component for application layer caching.

Like you were already told, you can use the Doctrine Common caching library http://docs.doctrine-project.org/projects/doctrine-common/en/latest/reference/caching.html

If you want something more advanced, you can also use one of the cache bundle provided by the community. For instance, the https://github.com/TheBigBrainsCompany/TbbcCacheBundle#cachebundle which provides tools for a good caching strategy.

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Comments

[Tower]

I'm interested in caching app specific data, like computationally expensive results, etc. I'm already caching them on APC, but what's the point of having 2 different cache systems? I also need to clear two caches now, although I did make one command of my own which clears both, but still.

[Tower]

What if I'm not using Doctrine? Why is this part of Doctrine?

[ChocoDeveloper]

@Tower Still no answer to this?

[ChocoDeveloper]

@Tower The answer seems to be that Doctrine needed this component, and created a damn good one so Symfony2 is not gonna reinvent it, but they didn't separate it into a different repository, so here we are.

[Peter]

This is part of Doctrine\Common. Don't confuse this with ORM, DBAL etc. "The Doctrine Common project is a library that provides extensions to core PHP functionality."

[unairoldan]

@Tower without use Doctrine: stackoverflow.com/questions/13407790/…

[Kris Wallsmith]

The Doctrine cache classes are now available via the doctrine/cache package if you use Composer.

[Francis Gonzales]

Is there a way for set it a time?

[Dimitry K]

If you're not using whole Doctrine ORM, you can still install just part doctrine/cache packagist.org/packages/doctrine/doctrine-cache-bundle which is decoupled from the ORM part of the doctrine

[forsberg]

It's said APC should not be used for caching data (like from DB) when it's used as opcode cache, because it affects its performance. There's a point why to use separate cache for custom data storing.

[Lg102]

@FrancisGonzales The save method takes a third lifetime parameter: doctrine-project.org/api/common/2.0/…

[ThomasP1988]

thank you very much for this answer, it finally works, I just had a little error with YAML, it seems that @memcached require quotes - [ setMemcached, ['@memcached'] ] (I'm using symfony 3.0)

[chris342423]

PS: Doctrine offers a lot of different cache implementations: github.com/doctrine/cache/tree/master/lib/Doctrine/Common/Ca‌​che

[famas23]

Hey thank you for your solution I have tow question does The class still the same with symfony4 ? no improvement ? and what command do we need to delete the cache?