Stash view is a composer package for Laravel
which caches views using Russian Doll Caching methodology.
What is Russian Doll Caching ? It is really famous caching stratergy to cache your views into small chunks. It is quite famous in Rails community. If you are interested to know more checkout this link.
In a nutshell, It caches your views into chunks. This article will give you more clear idea.
You can also checkout example code from here
Want video explaination of internals? check this youtube link.
Firstly require this package using following command.
composer require enlight/stash-view
This package supports auto discovery but if you are using Laravel 5.4
or below you need to add ServiceProvider
into providers
array.
For your Laravel app, open config/app.php
and, within the providers
array, append:
Enlight\StashView\Providers\StashViewServiceProvider::class
This will bootstrap the package into Laravel.
For this package to function properly, you must use a Laravel cache driver that supports tagging (like Cache::tags('foo')
). Drivers such as Memcached
and Redis
support this feature.
Check your .env
file, and ensure that your CACHE_DRIVER
choice accomodates this requirement:
CACHE_DRIVER=redis
NOTE: If your application is set to
local
environment then by default this package will usearray
caching driver to speed up development process so that you don't need to clear cache again and again while developing.
Have a look at Laravel's cache configuration documentation, if you need any help.
With the package now installed, you may use the provided @cache
Blade directive anywhere in your views, like so:
@cache('my-cache-key')
<div>
<h1>Hello World</h1>
</div>
@endcache
By surrounding this block of HTML with the @cache
and @endcache
directives, we're asking the package to cache the given HTML. Now this example is trivial, however, you can imagine a more complex view that includes various nested caches, as well as lazy-loaded relationship calls that trigger additional database queries. After the initial page load that caches the HTML fragment, each subsequent refresh will instead pull from the cache. As such, those additional database queries will never be executed. Really cool side effect of this package is it reduces you sql queries and solves n 1 problem out of the box.
Please keep in mind that, in production, this will cache the HTML fragment "forever". For local development, on the other hand, we are using array
cache driver which stores the cache in memory and flush out when work done. That way, you may update your views and templates however you wish, without needing to worry about clearing the cache manually.
Now because your production server will cache the fragments forever, you'll want to add a step to your deployment process that clears the relevant cache.
Cache::tags('views')->flush();
While you're free to hard-code any string for the cache key, the true power of Russian-Doll caching comes into play when we use a timestamp-based approach.
Consider the following fragment:
@cache($post)
<article>
<h2>{{ $post->title }}></h2>
<p>Written By: {{ $post->author->username }}</p>
<div class="body">{{ $post->body }}</div>
</article>
@endcache
In this example, we're passing the $post
object, itself, to the @cache
directive - rather than a string. The package will then look for a getCacheKey()
method on the model. We've already done that work for you; just have your Eloquent model use the Enlight\StashView\Traits\Cacheable
trait, like so:
use Enlight\StashView\Traits\Cacheable;
class Post extends Eloquent
{
use Cacheable;
}
Alternatively, you may use this trait on a parent class that each of your Eloquent models extend.
That should do it! Now, the cache key for this fragment will include the object's Primary Key
ie id
in most cases and updated_at
timestamp: App\Post/1-98765432101
.
The key is that, because we factor the
updated_at
timestamp into the cache key, whenever you update the given post, the cache key will change. This will then, in effect, bust the cache!
In order for this technique to work properly, it's vital that we have some mechanism to alert parent relationships (and subsequently bust parent caches) each time a model is updated. Here's a basic workflow:
- Model is updated in the database.
- Its
updated_at
timestamp is refreshed, triggering a new cache key for the instance. - The model "touches" (or pings) its parent.
- The parent's
updated_at
timestamp, too, is updated, which busts its associated cache. - Only the affected fragments re-render. All other cached items remain untouched.
Luckily, Laravel offers this "touch" functionality out of the box. Consider a Note
object that needs to alert its parent Card
relationship each time an update occurs.
<?php
namespace App;
use Enlight\StashView\Traits\Cacheable;
use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;
class Note extends Model
{
use Cacheable;
protected $touches = ['card'];
public function card()
{
return $this->belongsTo(Card::class);
}
}
Notice the $touches = ['card']
portion. This instructs Laravel to ping the card
relationship's timestamps each time the note is updated.
Now, everything is in place. You might render your view, like so:
resources/views/cards/_card.blade.php
@cache($card)
<article class="Card">
<h2>{{ $card->title }}</h2>
<ul>
@foreach ($card->notes as $note)
@include ('cards/_note')
@endforeach
</ul>
</article>
@endcache
resources/views/cards/_note.blade.php
@cache($note)
<li>{{ $note->body }}</li>
@endcache
Notice the Russian-Doll style cascading for our caches; that's the key. If any note is updated, its individual cache will clear - long with its parent - but any siblings will remain untouched.
Its not yet supported but this is already in todo list. Will appreciate any good PR for this. :)
1. Is there any way to override the cache key for a model instance?
Yes. Let's say you have:
@cache($post)
<div>view here</div>
@endcache
Behind the scenes, we'll look for a getCacheKey
method on the model. Now, as mentioned above, you can use the Enlight\StashView\Traits\Cacheable
trait to instantly import this functionality. Alternatively, you may pass your own cache key to the @cache
directive, like this:
@cache('post-pagination')
<div>view here</div>
@endcache
This instructs the package to use post-pagination
for the cache instead. This can be useful for pagination and other related tasks.
That's it. Thank You :)
Happy Coding.