Cache Keys

This module helps you create singular cache keys which can be used in your templates as part of Silverstripe's Partial Caching feature.

The overall aim of this module is twofold:

1. Make it easier for developers to create cache keys for our DataObjects (especially for those that have complex dependencies).
2. Increase the performance of our applications by reducing the number of, and the complexity of the cache keys that we calculate at the time of an end user's request.

What this module is not: This module is not here to provide a caching method, it is here to provide you with keys that you can use with your preferred caching method (EG: partial caching).

• Installation
• Why cache keys are difficult
• How we aim to solve these difficulties
• Setup and configuration
  • Has cache key
  • Cares
  • Touches
  • Global cares
  • Usage and Examples
• Performance impact/considerations
  • Queued jobs
• Fluent support
• GridField Orderable support
• License
• Maintainers
• Development and contribution

Installation

composer require silverstripe-terraformers/keys-for-cache

Why cache keys are difficult

The goal of any cache key is to have as low a cost as possible to calculate (as this must happen with every request), but also for it to invalidate at the appropriate times (IE: when a piece of relevant content has changed).

Consider the following:

• We have a Page Model with the Elemental module applied.
• One of the blocks available is a Carousel block. This block itself contains Carousel Items, and each Item contains an Image.
• When a change is made to the block itself, to one of its Items, or to any of the Images assigned to its Items, the cache key should be invalidated.

A cache key just for one Carousel block might look something like:

$parts = [
    static::class,
    $this->ID,
    $this->LastEdited,
    $this->Items()->max('LastEdited'),
    $this->Items()->count(),
];

This initial cache key is simply enough, but it is missing one critical piece, which is that we are not currently invalidating the cache key if one of the Images assigned to an Item changes.

• One option would be for us to now loop through each Item and find the ID and LastEdited date of each assigned Image, but doing this is very costly when it comes to our "cost to calculate".
• Another option would be to add Image::get()->max('LastEdited') to our cache key. This has a low cost to calculate, but it will mean that we invalidate the cache key for each Carousel block any time any Image is changed.

Neither option is great, but it is something that must be solved.

Assuming we find our solution, we still end up needing one cache key per block; if our page contains many blocks, then we have many cache keys that we need to calculate in order to have an accurate cache key for a single page.

How we aim to solve these difficulties

In short: We want to move the cost of calculating cache keys to when the changes are made in the CMS, rather than at the time of an end user's request. We will do this by having you configure the links between dependencies, and then we'll manage updating any relevant cache keys when those dependencies change.

To reiterate: We no longer want to create cache keys that contain tonnes or info based on all of our dependencies. Instead, we want to create really simple cache keys which we invalidate when dependencies require them to be.

Setup and configuration

Preamble: When we talk about "changes to records", this includes all C.R.U.D. actions.

Relationship config: In order for this module to function, we need to understand both directions of any relationship that you create a care for. More on this here.

Has cache key

First, you need to tell us which DataObjects you would like cache keys to be generated for. For example, we might like a key for all pages and all Elements:

Page:
    has_cache_key: true

DNADesign\Elemental\Models\BaseElement:
    has_cache_key: true

By adding this configuration, you will have access to the getCacheKey() method on your DataObject, and the $CacheKey variable in your template when you have that DataObject in scope.

Next, you need to define your dependencies (how your DataObjects relate to each other). There are three important configurations to be aware of:

• Cares
• Touches
• Global cares

Cares

This configuration determines how $this DataObject will be affected when other (related) DataObjects are manipulated.

For example: We have requested that all Elements have cache keys. If you have a CarouselBlock that contains CarouselItems, then you will want to make sure that the cache key for the CarouselBlock is invalidated any time a CourselItem is updated.

You can do that by telling us that your CarouselBlock cares about its Items.

App\Blocks\CarouselBlock:
    cares:
        - Items

Or in your class:

class CarouselBlock extends BaseElement
{
    private static array $has_many = [
        'Items' => CarouselItem::class,
    ];

    private static array $cares = [
        'Items',
    ];
}

Take the original example where we also wanted our CarouselItem to include changes to Images as part of its cache key. We could now also add a cares config to our CarouselItem (where the key is the field relationship name, and the value is the class that it relates to):

App\Blocks\CarouselItem:
    cares:
        - Image

Or in your class like so:

class CarouselItem extends DataObject
{
    private static array $has_one = [
        'Image' => Image::class,
    ];

    private static array $cares = [
        'Image',
    ];
}

Now whenever the linked Image is updated, it will also update the CarouselItem, and in turn the CarouselItem update the linked Carousel. Taking this a step further all the way back to Page, we could also add the following:

# Our BlockPage cares about changes to its ElementalArea
App\Elemental\BlockPage:
    cares:
        - ElementalArea

# Our ElementalAreas care about any changes made to its Elements
DNADesign\Elemental\Models\ElementalArea:
    cares:
        Elements: BaseElement::class

Our BlockPage now cares about our ElementalArea, and our ElementalArea now cares about all of its blocks/elements. This now means that any time a change is made to any of our blocks (so long as we have configured them similarly to how we have shown with the Carousel), we will get a new cache key value on our Page.

Alternatively, you could achieve the same outcome by using Touches.

Important note: Your DataObject does not need to has_cache_key in order for it to care or touch other DataObjects. In fact, we very much rely on you providing us with the full relationship tree through cares/touches. We will only generate the cache key for DataObjects that has_cache_key, but we will continue to follow the paths you create until we run out of them.

Important note: Definitely consider the performance consideration of invalidating your Page cache any time an element is updated. It has been added above purely as an example of what it technically possible; it has not been added as a recommendation.

Touches

This configuration determines how $this DataObject will affect others when it is updated. EG: when $this DataObject is updated, it should "touch" some other DataObjects so that they too have their cache keys invalidated.

Using the example from above, if you have a CarouselBlock with CarouselItems then you could alternatively configure it like so (where the key is the field relationship name, and the value is the class that it relates to):

App\Blocks\CarouselItem:
    touches:
        - Parent

Or in your class like so:

class CarouselItem extends DataObject
{
    private static array $has_one = [
        'Parent' => CarouselBlock::class,
    ];

    private static array $touches = [
        'Parent',
    ];
}

This would mean that any time the CarouselItem is updated it would also update the cache key of the parent CarouselBlock.

Alternatively, you could achieve the same outcome by using Cares.

Important note: Your DataObject does not need to has_cache_key in order for it to care or touch other DataObjects. In fact, we very much rely on you providing us with the full relationship tree through cares/touches. We will only generate the cache key for DataObjects that has_cache_key, but we will continue to follow the paths you create until we run out of them.

Global cares

You might run into situations where you need your cache key to be updated when any DataObject of a certain class is changed. For example, we could have a "Recent updates block", which lists out the pages that have been most recently updated. For this, we would want to make it so that when any page is updated, it will also invalidate the cache keys for any DataObject that cares about global changes to our pages.

App\Blocks\RecentUpdates:
    global_cares:
        - SilverStripe\CMS\Model\SiteTree

Important note: These global updates won't use the touches/cares when they occur. For example, if Blocks\RecentUpdates had a touches of Link: SilverStripe\CMS\Model\SiteTree, The site tree wouldn't be updated. This is a mechanism of global updates to ensure we don't run into performance issues

Usage and examples

See: Usage and Examples

Performance impact/considerations

This will increase the queries to the database when DataObjects are updated. We are still pretty early into our performance tests, but so far it has not created an unreasonable amount of additional load time to author actions.

That said:

• You should still be aware of what cares and touches configuration you enabled.
• If you start to notice performance issues with (say) Publishing a page, then you might need to reconsider the scope of relationships that you cares or touches as part of your Page and related DataObjects (EG: Blocks).

Queued jobs

If you want to prevent content authors from getting slightly slower responses when editing in the CMS, you can queue a job to generate the cache updates by injecting over CacheKeyExtension and updating triggerEvent to create a job then call CacheRelationService::singleton()->processChange($this->DataObject) in the job.

Fluent support

See: Fluent support

GridField Orderable support

See: GridField Orderable support

License

See License

Maintainers

• Adrian Humphreys adrhumphreys@gmail.com
• Chris Penny chris.penny@gmail.com
• Adrian Jimson adrian.jimson@silverstripe.com

Development and contribution

If you would like to make contributions to the module please ensure you raise a pull request and discuss with the module maintainers.