Object cache storage for Rails

Question

I want to have fast cache in which I want to keep all my nomenclature data. I don't want to go with Memcached because I have to do serialize/de-serialize on each object which is slow.

So I choose to be less effective in memory and keep the cache in each server instance. I am sure I am doing it in the wrong way because the NoCache module - which skips my cache and hits the Rails cache is faster than mine.

Here is how it is initialized

$cache = Cache.new

Here is the example usage

property_types = $cache['PropertyType']

and here is the source

module DirectCache
  def init_cache
  end

  def reload_model(model_class)
    key = get_key(model_class)
    klass = key.constantize
    object = klass.scoped
    puts "Loading cache for #{key}..."
    if klass.respond_to?(:translates) and klass.translates?
      puts "  Adding translation in the model for #{klass}"
      object = object.includes(:translations)
      self.storage[key] = object.send("all")
    end
  end

  def [] class_name_or_object
    puts "Hiting cache for #{class_name_or_object}"
    key = get_key(class_name_or_object)
    reload_model(class_name_or_object) if self.storage[key].blank? or self.storage[key].empty?
    raise "#{key} is missing in the cache #{@cache.keys.join ', '}" unless key? key
    self.storage[key]
  end

  def init_cache
  end

end

module NoCache
  def reload_model(model_class)
    key = get_key(model_class)
    self.storage[key] = key.constantize
  end

  def [] class_name_or_object
    key = get_key(class_name_or_object)
    raise "#{key} is missing in the cache #{@cache.keys.join ', '}" unless key? key
    klass = self.storage[key]
    object = klass.scoped
    if klass.respond_to?(:translates) and klass.translates?
      puts "Adding translation in the model for #{klass}"
      object = object.includes(:translations)
    end
    object.send("all")
  end

  def init_cache
  end

end

class Cache
  include DirectCache
  #  include NoCache
  #  include OpenStructCache

  @@models = [
    PropertyFunction,
    PropertyCategoryLocation,
    ConstructionType,
 ....20 more ....
    ExposureType,
  ]

  cattr_reader :models

  def initialize
    @cache = {}
    begin
      init_cache
    rescue
      puts "missing tables"
    end
  end


  def storage
    @cache
  end

  # returns the the key - aways string
  def get_key class_name_or_record
    case class_name_or_record
    when Class
      key = class_name_or_record.to_s
    when String
      key = class_name_or_record
    else
      key = class_name_or_record.class.to_s
    end
    key
  end

  def key? class_name_or_object
    key = get_key(class_name_or_object)
    self.storage.keys.include? key
  end

end

Answer 1

The ActiveSupport::Cache is not mandatory in Memcached, there are a cache in memory if you use the :memory_store ( http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActiveSupport/Cache/MemoryStore.html )

config.cache_store = :memory_store

Maybe can be a good start to implement your own Cache in memory