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Cache Rules Everything Around Me

John Reilly

John Reilly

One thing that ASP.Net Core really got right was caching. <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/performance/caching/memory">IMemoryCache</a> is a caching implementation that does just what I want. I love it. I take it everywhere. I've introduced it to my family.

TimeSpan, TimeSpan Expiration Y'all#

To make usage of the IMemoryCacheeven more lovely I've written an extension method. I follow pretty much one cache strategy: SetAbsoluteExpiration and I just vary the expiration by an amount of time. This extension method implements that in a simple way; I call it GetOrCreateForTimeSpanAsync - catchy right? It looks like this:

using System;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Caching.Memory;
namespace My.Helpers {
public static class CacheHelpers {
public static async Task<TItem> GetOrCreateForTimeSpanAsync<TItem>(
this IMemoryCache cache,
string key,
Func<Task<TItem>> itemGetterAsync,
TimeSpan timeToCache
) {
if (!cache.TryGetValue(key, out object result)) {
result = await itemGetterAsync();
if (result == null)
return default(TItem);
var cacheEntryOptions = new MemoryCacheEntryOptions()
.SetAbsoluteExpiration(timeToCache);
cache.Set(key, result, cacheEntryOptions);
}
return (TItem) result;
}
}
}

Usage looks like this:

private Task<superinterestingthing> GetSuperInterestingThingFromCache(Guid superInterestingThingId) =>
_cache.GetOrCreateForTimeSpanAsync(
key: $"{nameof(MyClass)}:GetSuperInterestingThing:{superInterestingThingId}",
itemGetterAsync: () => GetSuperInterestingThing(superInterestingThingId),
timeToCache: TimeSpan.FromMinutes(5)
);
</superinterestingthing>

This helper allows the consumer to provide three things:

  • The key key for the item to be cached with
  • A itemGetterAsync which is the method that is used to retrieve a new value if an item cannot be found in the cache
  • A timeToCache which is the period of time that an item should be cached

If an item can't be looked up by the itemGetterAsync then nothing will be cached and a the default value of the expected type will be returned. This is important because lookups can fail, and there's nothing worse than a lookup failing and you caching null as a result.

Go on, ask me how I know.

This is a simple, clear and helpful API which makes interacting with IMemoryCache even more lovely than it was. Peep it y'all.