Laravel : How do I compare/obtain specific datas from cache? - php

Question

In my normal polling Laravel chat app, I will save new messages sent by a user into a file cache with the key as a string, getting its value from date(current_time) function and the body of the message.
Then, when I want to obtain those messages, I will use the last Poll value $lastPolled = Session::get('lastPolled') and compare with the key in the cache. Keys that are greater than the $lastPolled value will have their data to be taken as new messages and appended into the conversations.
Finally, I will update the last polled session value Session::put('lastPolled',date(Y-m-d H:i:s)
So, how do I compare $lastPolled with all the keys in cache and get each key's values? Something along the lines of:
$latestMessages = array();
foreach(KeysInCache as Key=>value){
if($lastPolled>Key)
array_push($latestMessages,Key=>value);
}
Thank you!
P.s. bonus points for better suggestions. Oh and I can't use memcache/redis/otherSuperCaches for technical reasons, only file/database cache. :(

Answer 1

Why not try some thing like this by creating cache files based on timestamp or key :
Further details and suggestions on same at : http://evertpot.com/107/
// This is the function you store information with function
store($key,$data,$ttl) {
// Opening the file
$h = fopen($this->getFileName($key),'w');
if (!$h) throw new Exception('Could not write to cache');
// Serializing along with the TTL
$data = serialize(array(time()+$ttl,$data));
if (fwrite($h,$data)===false) {
throw new Exception('Could not write to cache');
}
fclose($h);
}
// General function to find the filename for a certain key private
function getFileName($key) {
return '/tmp/s_cache' . md5($key);
}
// The function to fetch data returns false on failure function
fetch($key) {
$filename = $this->getFileName($key);
if (!file_exists($filename) || !is_readable($filename)) return false;
$data = file_get_contents($filename);
$data = #unserialize($data);
if (!$data) {
// Unlinking the file when unserializing failed
unlink($filename);
return false;
}
// checking if the data was expired
if (time() > $data[0]) {
// Unlinking
unlink($filename);
return false;
}
return $data[1];
}
}