Caching variables in PHP

Question

I've been caching the output buffer of pages lately, but now I want to cache the values of variables.

I have a PHP file that does a bunch of MySQL queries, then fills variables with various data from those queries.

Some of those variables will never change but some will change quite often. How can I cache certain variables in this manner? I'm using file-based caching, if it helps.

possible duplicate of [Writing simple caching system in PHP](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5658815/writing-simple-caching-system-in-php) and numerous others — Your Common Sense, Apr 14 '11 at 06:51
Can you clarify your question? If you already have a cache mechanism, what's the problem? — Emil Vikström, Apr 14 '11 at 06:51
unless the site is huge, and poorly written (slow) any speed increases will be negligible. — , Apr 14 '11 at 06:54

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 14 '11 at 06:52

Yup, file based caching is an option.

There are also other options like memcache and APC

You should have a look at these as well. If your application is putting a lot of load on your MySQL server, and if your DB is already optimized, caching is a step you can take.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 06:56

You can dump any variable (including an array) using serialize, and the inverse is unserialize.

Dumping to a file would be quite a useless cache solution, you can consider using memcache which can store any variable in memory, but requires some work on server side.

I find that a local mysql with MEMORY tables can be useful, too...

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 06:50

1

I dont know, how you structured your current caching stuff, so this is just a short template on how you can save any kind of variable (as long as its content is serializeable) to a file.

file_put_contents($filename, serialize($variable));

answered Apr 14 '11 at 06:50

KingCrunch

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 07:42

Since you asked about file-based caching, both memcache and APC are no option, although I would certainly recommend both in cases where the stored data is not too large.

For file based caching, I would recommend you to use a caching framework. For example, you could use Zend_Cache from the Zend Framework. It allows you to store your query results in files by using a nice object oriented interface. Plus, you've got a lot of options, such as validation and serialization. There are also other caching frameworks out there.

Caching variables in PHP

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