Laravel: how to cache route for 5 minutes? - php

Question

I want to cache one route in Laravel project and clear it for every 5 minutes.
I searched a bunch of articles but only found artisan route:cache command and I have no idea if it possible to configure caching time.
So, this is my routes routes/web.php:
$router->group(['middleware' => ['api','cors']], function () use ($router) {
$router->get('game', ['uses' => 'GameController#checkGameStatus']);
$router->get('promo', ['uses' => 'PromoController#sendPromoCode']);
$router->get('get_leaders', ['uses' => 'GameController#getLeaders']); // <-- cache this for 5m
});
And every time when user loads rating page the getLeaders() function initiates DB request to get and calculate all user results. Therefore I want to reduce DB load and make it calculating all results once in 5 minutes. The rest of the time get_leaders route should send back just cached json output.
How to set such configuration? Is it possible to do just with Laravel (artisan) or should I change .htaccess file (I am using apache)?

Answer 1

To add to #TimLewis 's answer, if you're using laravel 5.8 or newer then the Cache::remember function can simplify the controller code quite a bit
public function getLeaders(){
$leaders = Cache::remember('leaders', 300, function () {
return Leader::where(...)->get();
});
return response()->json(['leaders' => $leaders]);
}
The Cache::remember function takes care of the entire caching workflow, it first checks the cache for the leaders object and returns that if it exists. If not, it runs the code inside the closure and stores the result in the cache under the key specified in the first param, for the number of seconds specified in the second param. So in this case it would cache the result under the key "leaders" for 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Answer 2

This is a pretty simple to solve problem actually. In your function getLeaders(), you'll need to modify the code:
public function getLeaders(){
$leadersCache = Cache::get("leaders", null);
if($leadersCache){
return response()->json(["leaders", $leadersCache], 200);
}
$leaders = Leader::where(...)->get();
Cache::put("leaders", $leaders, 5);
return response(["leaders", $leaders], 200);
}
So, what this does, is first, check if "leaders" exists in the cache. If it does, it will simply return that. If it doesn't (which will be the case when this route is first called), then it will do the calculations, and using Cache::put(), store it in the cache, then return. For the next 5 minutes, anytime this route is hit, it will return the cached result, until the process is started over again.
Note the above is pseudo-code, as your Controller wasn't shown, but the approach can be easily adapted to existing code. Also, you may need to include use Cache; at the top of your Controller, or reference Cache via \Cache::{method}
Everything about the cache can be found in the documentation: https://laravel.com/docs/5.7/cache

Answer 3

Laravel > 7 u can use cash::rmember(), and u will save a lot with writing less
Example :
$getleaders = Cache::remember('getleaders', 'minutes', function () {
u query;
});