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03.

The Cache Service

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Thanks to the 7 bundles installed in our app, we already have a bunch of useful services. In fact, Symfony ships with a killer cache system out of the box! Run:

./bin/console debug:autowiring

Scroll to the top. Ah! Check out CacheItemPoolInterface. Notice it's an alias to cache.app. And, further below, there's another called AdapterInterface that's an alias to that same key.

Understanding Autowiring Types & Aliases

Honestly, this can be confusing at first. Internally, each service has a unique name, or "id", just like routes. The internal id for Symfony's cache service is cache.app. That's not very important yet... except that, if you see two entries that are both aliases to the same service, it means that you can use either type hint to get the exact same object. Yep, both CacheItemPoolInterface and AdapterInterface will cause the exact same object to be passed to you.

Tip

In recent versions of Symfony, a Symfony\Contracts\Cache\CacheInterface can also be used to autowire the cache service and it's the preferred type-hint to use.

So... which one should we use? The docs will recommend one, but it technically does not matter. The only difference is that PhpStorm may auto-complete different methods for you based on the interface or class you choose. So if it doesn't auto-complete the method you're looking for, try the other interface.

Using Symfony's Cache

Let's use the AdapterInterface. Go back to our controller. Here's our next mission: to cache the markdown transformation: there's no reason to do that on every request! At the top of the method, add AdapterInterface $cache:

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

Cool! Let's go use it! Symfony's cache service implements the PHP-standard cache interface, called PSR-6... in case you want Google it and geek-out over the details. But, you probably shouldn't care about this... it just means better interoperability between libraries. So... I guess... yay!

But... there's a downside.... a dark side. The standard is very powerful... but kinda weird to use at first. So, watch closely.

Start with $item = $cache->getItem(). We need to pass this a cache key. Use markdown_ and then md5($articleContent):

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 34
$articleContent = <<<EOF
// ... lines 36 - 51
EOF;
$item = $cache->getItem('markdown_'.md5($articleContent));
// ... lines 55 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

Excellent! Different markdown content will have a different key. Now, when we call getItem() this does not actually go and fetch that from the cache. Nope, it just creates a CacheItem object in memory that can help us fetch and save to the cache.

For example, to check if this key is not already cached, use if (!$item->isHit()):

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 53
$item = $cache->getItem('markdown_'.md5($articleContent));
if (!$item->isHit()) {
// ... lines 56 - 57
}
// ... lines 59 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

Inside we need to put the item into cache. That's a two-step process. Step 1: $item->set() and then the value, which is $markdown->transform($articleContent). Step 2: $cache->save($item):

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 53
$item = $cache->getItem('markdown_'.md5($articleContent));
if (!$item->isHit()) {
$item->set($markdown->transform($articleContent));
$cache->save($item);
}
// ... lines 59 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

I know, I know - it smells a bit over-engineered... but it's crazy powerful and insanely quick.

Tip

In Symfony 4.1, you will be able to use the Psr\SimpleCache\CacheInterface type-hint to get a "simpler" (but less powerful) cache object.

After all of this, add $articleContent = $item->get() to fetch the value from cache:

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 53
$item = $cache->getItem('markdown_'.md5($articleContent));
if (!$item->isHit()) {
$item->set($markdown->transform($articleContent));
$cache->save($item);
}
$articleContent = $item->get();
// ... lines 60 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

Debugging the Cache

Ok, let's do this! Find your browser and refresh! Check this out: remember that we have a web debug toolbar icon for the cache! I'll click and open that in a new tab.

Hmm. There are a number of things called "pools". Pools are different cache systems and most are used internally by Symfony. The one we're using is called cache.app. And, cool! We had a cache "miss" and two calls: we wrote to the cache and then read from it.

Refresh the page again... and re-open the cache profiler. This time we hit the cache. Yes!

And just to make sure we did our job correctly, go back to the markdown content. Let's emphasize "turkey" with two asterisks:

81 lines | src/Controller/ArticleController.php
// ... lines 1 - 8
use Symfony\Component\Cache\Adapter\AdapterInterface;
// ... lines 10 - 13
class ArticleController extends AbstractController
{
// ... lines 16 - 26
public function show($slug, MarkdownInterface $markdown, AdapterInterface $cache)
{
// ... lines 29 - 34
$articleContent = <<<EOF
// ... lines 36 - 38
**turkey** shank eu pork belly meatball non cupim.
// ... lines 40 - 51
EOF;
$item = $cache->getItem('markdown_'.md5($articleContent));
if (!$item->isHit()) {
$item->set($markdown->transform($articleContent));
$cache->save($item);
}
$articleContent = $item->get();
// ... lines 60 - 66
}
// ... lines 68 - 79
}

Refresh again! Yes! The change does show up thanks to the new cache key. And this time, in the profiler, we had another miss and write on cache.app.

Check you out! You just learned Symfony's cache service! Add that to your toolkit!

But this leaves some questions: it's great that Symfony gives us a cache service... but where is it saving the cache files? And more importantly, what if I need to change the cache service to save the cache somewhere else, like Redis? That's next!