There are applications out there that rely heavily on cache to improve performance, and thanks to Laravel's cache()->remember() method, we can easily cache the result of a callback for a given Time-To-Live (TTL).

However, there are cases when the callback may take a long time to execute, and we don't want to wait for it to finish before giving a response back to the user.

This is where the Stale-While-Revalidate pattern comes in handy. It allows us to return a cached result immediately, and then execute the callback in the background to update the cache for the next request.

flowchart TD
    Request[Request key from cache] --> CacheHit{Is the given key available in cache?}

    CacheHit -->|No| FirstTimeProcess[Execute long process]
    FirstTimeProcess --> FirstTimeCache[Cache result]
    FirstTimeCache --> Response

    CacheHit -->|Yes| CacheStale{Is it stale?}
    CacheStale -->|No| ObtainCache[Get fresh value from cache]
    ObtainCache --> Response

    CacheStale --> |Yes| ObtainStaleCache
        ObtainStaleCache[Get stale value from cache] --> Response
        
        ObtainStaleCache -.- Background
        subgraph Background[After response]
            LongProcess[Execute long process] --> CacheResult[Cache result]
        end

    Response[Return value] --> Continue[/.../]

You can install the package via composer:

composer require iksaku/laravel-swr-cache

The swr() method is a wrapper around cache()->remember() that adds support for the Stale-While-Revalidate pattern using a new Time-To-Stale argument (TTS). You can access this method using the cache() helper function:

$stats = cache()->swr(
    key: 'stats',
    ttl: now()->addHour(),
    tts: now()->addMinutes(15),
    callback: function () {
        // This may take a couple of seconds...
    }
);

// ...

Or using the Cache facade:

$stats = \Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache::swr(
    key: 'stats',
    ttl: now()->addHour(),
    tts: now()->addMinutes(15),
    callback: function () {
        // This may take a couple of seconds...
    }
);

// ...

Like the remember() method, if the value is not available in cache, the callback will be executed and the result will be cached for the given Time-To-Live and the corresponding Time-To-Stale will also be stored.

If the value is available and the Time-To-Stale has not passed, the value is considered fresh and will be returned immediately. The callback will not be executed.

If the Time-To-Stale has passed, the value is considered stale, it will be returned immediately, and the callback will be executed after the response is sent to the user.

If you prefer to queue the callback execution instead of running it after the response is sent, you can use the queue argument:

$stats = cache()->swr(
    key: 'stats',
    ttl: now()->addHour(),
    tts: now()->addMinutes(15),
    callback: function () {
        // This may take more than a couple of seconds...
    },
    queue: true
);

And, if you want to further customize the queued job, you can pass on a closure that accepts a parameter of type Illuminate\Foundation\Bus\PendingClosureDispatch:

use Illuminate/Foundation/Bus/PendingClosureDispatch;

$stats = cache()->swr(
    key: 'stats',
    ttl: now()->addHour(),
    tts: now()->addMinutes(15),
    callback: function () {
        // This may take more than a couple of seconds...
    },
    queue: function (PendingClosureDispatch $job) {
        $job->onQueue('high-priority')
    }
);

composer test

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

Please review our security policy on how to report security vulnerabilities.

• Jorge González
• All Contributors

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.