cache/README

go-cache is an in-memory key:value store/cache similar to memcached that is
suitable for applications running on a single machine. Its major advantage is
that, being essentially a thread-safe map[string]interface{} with expiration
times, it doesn't need to serialize or transmit its contents over the network.

Any object can be stored, for a given duration or forever, and the cache can be
safely used by multiple goroutines.

Although go-cache isn't meant to be used as a persistent datastore, the entire
cache may be saved to and loaded from a file (or any io.Reader/Writer) to
recover from downtime quickly.

== Installation

go get github.com/pmylund/go-cache

== Usage

import "github.com/pmylund/go-cache"

// Create a cache with a default expiration time of 5 minutes, and which
// purges expired items every 30 seconds
c := cache.New(5*time.Minute, 30*time.Second)

// Set the value of the key "foo" to "bar", with the default expiration time
c.Set("foo", "bar", 0)

// Set the value of the key "baz" to 42, with no expiration time
// (the item won't be removed until it is re-set, or removed using
// c.Delete("baz")
c.Set("baz", 42, -1)

// Get the string associated with the key "foo" from the cache
foo, found := c.Get("foo")
if found {
        fmt.Println(foo)
}

// Since Go is statically typed, and cache values can be anything, type
// assertion is needed when values are being passed to functions that don't
// take arbitrary types, (i.e. interface{}). The simplest way to do this for
// values which will only be used once--e.g. for passing to another
// function--is:
foo, found := c.Get("foo")
if found {
        MyFunction(foo.(string))
}

// This gets tedious if the value is used several times in the same function.
// You might do either of the following instead:
if x, found := c.Get("foo"); found {
        foo := x.(string)
        ...
}
// or
var foo string
if x, found := c.Get("foo"); found {
        foo = x.(string)
}
...
// foo can then be passed around freely as a string

// Want performance? Store pointers!
c.Set("foo", &MyStruct, 0)
if x, found := c.Get("foo"); found {
        foo := x.(*MyStruct)
        ...
}

// If you store a reference type like a pointer, slice, map or channel, you
// do not need to run Set if you modify the underlying data. The cached
// reference points to the same memory, so if you modify a struct whose
// pointer you've stored in the cache, retrieving that pointer with Get will
// point you to the same data:
foo := &MyStruct{Num: 1}
c.Set("foo", foo, 0)
...
x, _ := c.Get("foo")
foo := x.(*MyStruct)
fmt.Println(foo.Num)
...
foo.Num++
...
x, _ := c.Get("foo")
foo := x.(*MyStruct)
foo.Println(foo.Num)

// will print:
1
2

== Reference

func New(de, ci time.Duration) *Cache
    Return a new cache with a given default expiration duration and cleanup
    interval. If the expiration duration is less than 1, the items in the cache
    never expire (by default), and must be deleted manually. If the cleanup
    interval is less than one, expired items are not deleted from the cache
    before their next lookup or before calling DeleteExpired.

func (c *Cache) Set(k string, x interface{}, d time.Duration)
    Add an item to the cache, replacing any existing item. If the duration is
    0, the cache's default expiration time is used. If it is -1, the item never
    expires.

func (c *Cache) Add(k string, x interface{}, d time.Duration) error
    Add an item to the cache only if an item doesn't already exist for the
    given key, or if the existing item has expired. Returns an error if not.

func (c *Cache) Replace(k string, x interface{}, d time.Duration) error
    Set a new value for the cache key only if it already exists. Returns an
    error if it does not.

func (c *Cache) Get(k string) (interface{}, bool)
    Get an item from the cache. Returns the item or nil, and a bool indicating
    whether the key was found.

func (c *Cache) Increment(k string, n int64) error
    Increment an item of type int, int8, int16, int32, int64, uintptr, uint,
    uint8, uint32, or uint64, float32 or float64 by n. Returns an error if the
    item's value is not an integer, if it was not found, or if it is not
    possible to increment it by n.

func (c *Cache) IncrementFloat(k string, n float64) error
    Increment an item of type float32 or float64 by n. Returns an error if the
    item's value is not floating point, if it was not found, or if it is not
    possible to increment it by n. Pass a negative number to decrement the
    value.

func (c *Cache) Decrement(k string, n int64) error
    Decrement an item of type int, int8, int16, int32, int64, uintptr, uint,
    uint8, uint32, or uint64, float32 or float64 by n. Returns an error if the
    item's value is not an integer, if it was not found, or if it is not
    possible to decrement it by n.

func (c *Cache) Delete(k string)
    Delete an item from the cache. Does nothing if the key does not exist in the
    cache.

func (c *Cache) DeleteExpired()
    Delete all expired items from the cache.

func (c *Cache) Flush()
    Delete all items from the cache.

func (c *Cache) Save(w io.Writer) error
    Write the cache's items (using Gob) to an io.Writer. Returns an error if
    the serialization fails, e.g. because there are unserializable objects like
    channels in the cache.

func (c *Cache) SaveFile(fname string) error
    Save the cache's items to the given filename, creating the file if it
    doesn't exist, and overwriting it if it does.

func (c *Cache) Load(r io.Reader) error
    Add (Gob-serialized) cache items from an io.Reader, excluding any items
    with keys that already exist in the current cache.

func (c *Cache) LoadFile(fname string) error
    Loads and adds cache items from the given filename, excluding any items
    with keys that already exist in the current cache.