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phpmysqllaravellaravel-4eloquent
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Reputation: 624

Best way to "cache" Eloquent queries

I have an application that runs function like SomeModel::getValue($month, $year, $departmentId) in a loop.

getValue creates a query and returns the result:

return self::where('department_id', '=', $department_id)
           ->where('year', '=', $year)
           ->where('month', '=', $month)
           ->pluck('value');

In this loop it might call the same arguments more than once. I wanted to know the best way to avoid creating a new query each time i want to get the data.

I thought about creating a static array inside the model and match against it every time getValue is being called. If value exists in the array just return it, if not create a query.

Is my solution ok? you have any other ideas? thank you!

I'm using Laravel 4

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1930

Answers (1)

Nick Andriopoulos
Nick Andriopoulos

Reputation: 10653

Static caching is the best method as long as you are ok with the implications:

  • You only cache per request -- if the user refreshes, you recreate the cache from scratch
  • You will have some memory overhead to keep the populated static array. This, on its own, is not a big deal until you have to take into account concurrency (each request has its own static arrays).

Depending on the maximum size of the static array, it might be best to decide how long your cache is valid for (eg 1 minute), and push the cache to some form of cross-request cache so that you can reuse it ( see APC, Memcached, or even simple MySQL INSERT in a table) -- in all cases just save the serialized array and load it as an additional step before doing the actual computation.

Upvotes: 1

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