Caching Interface¶

Caching is a common way to improve the performance of any project, making caching libraries one of the most common features of many frameworks and libraries. This has lead to a situation where many libraries build their own caching libraries, with various levels of functionality. These differences are causing developers to have to learn multiple systems which may or may not provide the functionality they need. In addition, the developers of caching libraries themselves face a choice between only supporting a limited number of frameworks or creating a large number of adapter classes.

A common interface for caching systems will solve these problems. Library and framework developers can count on the caching systems working the way they're expecting, while the developers of caching systems will only have to implement a single set of interfaces rather than a whole assortment of adapters.

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

Goal¶

The goal of this PSR is to allow developers to create cache-aware libraries that can be integrated into existing frameworks and systems without the need for custom development.

Definitions¶

• Calling Library - The library or code that actually needs the cache services. This library will utilize caching services that implement this standard's interfaces, but will otherwise have no knowledge of the implementation of those caching services.

• Implementing Library - This library is responsible for implementing this standard in order to provide caching services to any Calling Library. The Implementing Library MUST provide classes which implement the Cache\CacheItemPoolInterface and Cache\CacheItemInterface interfaces. Implementing Libraries MUST support at minimum TTL functionality as described below with whole-second granularity.

• TTL - The Time To Live (TTL) of an item is the amount of time between when that item is stored and it is considered stale. The TTL is normally defined by an integer representing time in seconds, or a DateInterval object.

• Expiration - The actual time when an item is set to go stale. This is typically calculated by adding the TTL to the time when an object is stored, but may also be explicitly set with DateTime object. An item with a 300 second TTL stored at 1:30:00 will have an expiration of 1:35:00. Implementing Libraries MAY expire an item before its requested Expiration Time, but MUST treat an item as expired once its Expiration Time is reached. If a calling library asks for an item to be saved but does not specify an expiration time, or specifies a null expiration time or TTL, an Implementing Library MAY use a configured default duration. If no default duration has been set, the Implementing Library MUST interpret that as a request to cache the item forever, or for as long as the underlying implementation supports.

• Key - A string of at least one character that uniquely identifies a cached item. Implementing libraries MUST support keys consisting of the characters A-Z, a-z, 0-9, _, and . in any order in UTF-8 encoding and a length of up to 64 characters. Implementing libraries MAY support additional characters and encodings or longer lengths, but must support at least that minimum. Libraries are responsible for their own escaping of key strings as appropriate, but MUST be able to return the original unmodified key string. The following characters are reserved for future extensions and MUST NOT be supported by implementing libraries: {}()/\@:

• Hit - A cache hit occurs when a Calling Library requests an Item by key and a matching value is found for that key, and that value has not expired, and the value is not invalid for some other reason. Calling Libraries SHOULD make sure to verify isHit() on all get() calls.

• Miss - A cache miss is the opposite of a cache hit. A cache miss occurs when a Calling Library requests an item by key and that value not found for that key, or the value was found but has expired, or the value is invalid for some other reason. An expired value MUST always be considered a cache miss.

• Deferred - A deferred cache save indicates that a cache item may not be persisted immediately by the pool. A Pool object MAY delay persisting a deferred cache item in order to take advantage of bulk-set operations supported by some storage engines. A Pool MUST ensure that any deferred cache items are eventually persisted and data is not lost, and MAY persist them before a Calling Library requests that they be persisted. When a Calling Library invokes the commit() method all outstanding deferred items MUST be persisted. An Implementing Library MAY use whatever logic is appropriate to determine when to persist deferred items, such as an object destructor, persisting all on save(), a timeout or max-items check or any other appropriate logic. Requests for a cache item that has been deferred MUST return the deferred but not-yet-persisted item.

Data¶

Implementing libraries MUST support all serializable PHP data types, including:

• Strings - Character strings of arbitrary size in any PHP-compatible encoding.
• Integers - All integers of any size supported by PHP, up to 64-bit signed.
• Floats - All signed floating point values.
• Boolean - True and False.
• Null - The actual null value.
• Arrays - Indexed, associative and multidimensional arrays of arbitrary depth.
• Object - Any object that supports lossless serialization and deserialization such that $o == unserialize(serialize($o)). Objects MAY leverage PHP's Serializable interface, __sleep() or __wakeup() magic methods, or similar language functionality if appropriate.

All data passed into the Implementing Library MUST be returned exactly as passed. That includes the variable type. That is, it is an error to return (string) 5 if (int) 5 was the value saved. Implementing Libraries MAY use PHP's serialize()/unserialize() functions internally but are not required to do so. Compatibility with them is simply used as a baseline for acceptable object values.

If it is not possible to return the exact saved value for any reason, implementing libraries MUST respond with a cache miss rather than corrupted data.

Key Concepts¶

Pool¶

The Pool represents a collection of items in a caching system. The pool is a logical Repository of all items it contains. All cacheable items are retrieved from the Pool as an Item object, and all interaction with the whole universe of cached objects happens through the Pool.

Items¶

An Item represents a single key/value pair within a Pool. The key is the primary unique identifier for an Item and MUST be immutable. The Value MAY be changed at any time.

Error handling¶

While caching is often an important part of application performance, it should never be a critical part of application functionality. Thus, an error in a cache system SHOULD NOT result in application failure. For that reason, Implementing Libraries MUST NOT throw exceptions other than those defined by the interface, and SHOULD trap any errors or exceptions triggered by an underlying data store and not allow them to bubble.

An Implementing Library SHOULD log such errors or otherwise report them to an administrator as appropriate.

If a Calling Library requests that one or more Items be deleted, or that a pool be cleared, it MUST NOT be considered an error condition if the specified key does not exist. The post-condition is the same (the key does not exist, or the pool is empty), thus there is no error condition.

Interfaces¶

CacheItemInterface¶

CacheItemInterface defines an item inside a cache system. Each Item object MUST be associated with a specific key, which can be set according to the implementing system and is typically passed by the Cache\CacheItemPoolInterface object.

The Cache\CacheItemInterface object encapsulates the storage and retrieval of cache items. Each Cache\CacheItemInterface is generated by a Cache\CacheItemPoolInterface object, which is responsible for any required setup as well as associating the object with a unique Key. Cache\CacheItemInterface objects MUST be able to store and retrieve any type of PHP value defined in the Data section of this document.

Calling Libraries MUST NOT instantiate Item objects themselves. They may only be requested from a Pool object via the getItem() method. Calling Libraries SHOULD NOT assume that an Item created by one Implementing Library is compatible with a Pool from another Implementing Library.

<?php

namespace Psr\Cache;

/**
 * CacheItemInterface defines an interface for interacting with objects inside a cache.
 */
interface CacheItemInterface
{
    /**
     * Returns the key for the current cache item.
     *
     * The key is loaded by the Implementing Library, but should be available to
     * the higher level callers when needed.
     *
     * @return string
     *   The key string for this cache item.
     */
    public function getKey();

    /**
     * Retrieves the value of the item from the cache associated with this object's key.
     *
     * The value returned must be identical to the value originally stored by set().
     *
     * If isHit() returns false, this method MUST return null. Note that null
     * is a legitimate cached value, so the isHit() method SHOULD be used to
     * differentiate between "null value was found" and "no value was found."
     *
     * @return mixed
     *   The value corresponding to this cache item's key, or null if not found.
     */
    public function get();

    /**
     * Confirms if the cache item lookup resulted in a cache hit.
     *
     * Note: This method MUST NOT have a race condition between calling isHit()
     * and calling get().
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if the request resulted in a cache hit. False otherwise.
     */
    public function isHit();

    /**
     * Sets the value represented by this cache item.
     *
     * The $value argument may be any item that can be serialized by PHP,
     * although the method of serialization is left up to the Implementing
     * Library.
     *
     * @param mixed $value
     *   The serializable value to be stored.
     *
     * @return static
     *   The invoked object.
     */
    public function set($value);

    /**
     * Sets the expiration time for this cache item.
     *
     * @param \DateTimeInterface|null $expiration
     *   The point in time after which the item MUST be considered expired.
     *   If null is passed explicitly, a default value MAY be used. If none is set,
     *   the value should be stored permanently or for as long as the
     *   implementation allows.
     *
     * @return static
     *   The called object.
     */
    public function expiresAt($expiration);

    /**
     * Sets the expiration time for this cache item.
     *
     * @param int|\DateInterval|null $time
     *   The period of time from the present after which the item MUST be considered
     *   expired. An integer parameter is understood to be the time in seconds until
     *   expiration. If null is passed explicitly, a default value MAY be used.
     *   If none is set, the value should be stored permanently or for as long as the
     *   implementation allows.
     *
     * @return static
     *   The called object.
     */
    public function expiresAfter($time);

}

CacheItemPoolInterface¶

The primary purpose of Cache\CacheItemPoolInterface is to accept a key from the Calling Library and return the associated Cache\CacheItemInterface object. It is also the primary point of interaction with the entire cache collection. All configuration and initialization of the Pool is left up to an Implementing Library.

<?php

namespace Psr\Cache;

/**
 * CacheItemPoolInterface generates CacheItemInterface objects.
 */
interface CacheItemPoolInterface
{
    /**
     * Returns a Cache Item representing the specified key.
     *
     * This method must always return a CacheItemInterface object, even in case of
     * a cache miss. It MUST NOT return null.
     *
     * @param string $key
     *   The key for which to return the corresponding Cache Item.
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     *   If the $key string is not a legal value a \Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException
     *   MUST be thrown.
     *
     * @return CacheItemInterface
     *   The corresponding Cache Item.
     */
    public function getItem($key);

    /**
     * Returns a traversable set of cache items.
     *
     * @param string[] $keys
     *   An indexed array of keys of items to retrieve.
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     *   If any of the keys in $keys are not a legal value a \Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException
     *   MUST be thrown.
     *
     * @return array|\Traversable
     *   A traversable collection of Cache Items keyed by the cache keys of
     *   each item. A Cache item will be returned for each key, even if that
     *   key is not found. However, if no keys are specified then an empty
     *   traversable MUST be returned instead.
     */
    public function getItems(array $keys = array());

    /**
     * Confirms if the cache contains specified cache item.
     *
     * Note: This method MAY avoid retrieving the cached value for performance reasons.
     * This could result in a race condition with CacheItemInterface::get(). To avoid
     * such situation use CacheItemInterface::isHit() instead.
     *
     * @param string $key
     *   The key for which to check existence.
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     *   If the $key string is not a legal value a \Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException
     *   MUST be thrown.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if item exists in the cache, false otherwise.
     */
    public function hasItem($key);

    /**
     * Deletes all items in the pool.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if the pool was successfully cleared. False if there was an error.
     */
    public function clear();

    /**
     * Removes the item from the pool.
     *
     * @param string $key
     *   The key to delete.
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     *   If the $key string is not a legal value a \Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException
     *   MUST be thrown.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if the item was successfully removed. False if there was an error.
     */
    public function deleteItem($key);

    /**
     * Removes multiple items from the pool.
     *
     * @param string[] $keys
     *   An array of keys that should be removed from the pool.
     *
     * @throws InvalidArgumentException
     *   If any of the keys in $keys are not a legal value a \Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException
     *   MUST be thrown.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if the items were successfully removed. False if there was an error.
     */
    public function deleteItems(array $keys);

    /**
     * Persists a cache item immediately.
     *
     * @param CacheItemInterface $item
     *   The cache item to save.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if the item was successfully persisted. False if there was an error.
     */
    public function save(CacheItemInterface $item);

    /**
     * Sets a cache item to be persisted later.
     *
     * @param CacheItemInterface $item
     *   The cache item to save.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   False if the item could not be queued or if a commit was attempted and failed. True otherwise.
     */
    public function saveDeferred(CacheItemInterface $item);

    /**
     * Persists any deferred cache items.
     *
     * @return bool
     *   True if all not-yet-saved items were successfully saved or there were none. False otherwise.
     */
    public function commit();
}

CacheException¶

This exception interface is intended for use when critical errors occur, including but not limited to cache setup such as connecting to a cache server or invalid credentials supplied.

Any exception thrown by an Implementing Library MUST implement this interface.

<?php

namespace Psr\Cache;

/**
 * Exception interface for all exceptions thrown by an Implementing Library.
 */
interface CacheException
{
}

InvalidArgumentException¶

<?php

namespace Psr\Cache;

/**
 * Exception interface for invalid cache arguments.
 *
 * Any time an invalid argument is passed into a method it must throw an
 * exception class which implements Psr\Cache\InvalidArgumentException.
 */
interface InvalidArgumentException extends CacheException
{
}

Since psr/cache version 2.0, the above interfaces have been updated to add argument type hints. Since psr/cache version 3.0, the above interfaces have been updated to add return type hints. References to array|\Traversable have been replaced with iterable.