README.md

StaleIfSlow

Is a quality assurance tool for methods that access external services or have slow operations that could rely on stale cache in case of problems.

How it works

StaleIfSlow creates a proxy around your methods that will cache the results after a call. The generated cache has two different durations that will be called 'fast cache' and 'slow cache', let's say for 5 and 30 minutes. After the first call, all following calls will return the cached value for 5 minutes; the duration the fast cache expires. When this happens, another call of your method will be executed. If this call takes less than the configured timeout the cache is updated and another 5 minutes period of fast cache takes place. If the call is longer than timeout the last cached value is returned. This behaviour lasts for the period of the slow cache, in our example 30 minutes. If after these 30 minutes every call takes more time than timeout, the next call can take the time it needs and both caches are updated again.

The cache store used will rely on ActiveSupport::Cache::Store interface.

Getting started

Instalation

gem install stale_if_slow

or add to your Gemfile

gem 'stale_if_slow'

Setup

With Rails

In config/application.rb or in each environment file you will have access to the configuration object, like:

class Application < Rails::Application
  # ...    
    config.stale_if_slow.timeout 0.4 # In seconds, accepts float numbers
    config.stale_if_slow.content_timeout 10.minutes
    config.stale_if_slow.stale_content_timeout 1.hour    
  # ...
end

Some values are configured to Rails defaults, but it is possible to change those values

config.stale_if_slow.cache_store ActiveSupport::Cache.lookup_store(:memory_store)
config.stale_if_slow.logger Logger.new(STDOUT)
config.stale_if_slow.logger_level Logger::ERROR

Without

require "stale_if_slow"

StaleIfSlow.configure do
  cache_store ActiveSupport::Cache.lookup_store(:memory_store)
  logger Logger.new(STDOUT)
  logger_level Logger::ERROR
  timeout 0.4 # In seconds, accepts float numbers
  content_timeout 10.minutes
  stale_content_timeout 1.hour
end

You can now configure your classes like:

class MyClass
  include StaleIfSlow::API    
  stale_if_slow :find_all
    
  def find_all
    # impl
  end
end

When cache value is written into cache it uses a default key provided by KeyGenerator, some times the default algorithm is not optimized for your methods because it take in account the parameters received by the method, so you are the best person to provide an implementation. It is possible to replace the default key generator for each proxied method using a class or a proc, like:

class MyKeyGenerator
  def initialize method_name, reference
    @reference, @method_name = reference, method_name
  end
      
  def generate args
    # A better algorithm
  end
end

stale_if_slow using_with_class: MyKeygenerator
stale_if_slow using_with_proc: lambda {|method_name, obj, args| # A better algorithm }

Sometimes is necessary to configure diferent times for some methods, to do that do like:

stale_if_slow find_all: { timeout: 0.1, content_timeout: 30.seconds, stale_content_timeout: 5.minutes }

Each key of hash is optional, replace those that you need. When you are using this syntax and want to replace the key generator proceed like:

stale_if_slow using_with_class: { timeout: 0.2, key: MyKeygenerator }
stale_if_slow using_with_proc: {
  timeout: 0.2, key: lambda {|method_name, obj, args| "" } 
}

License

MIT License. Copyright 2012 Túlio Ornelas