Question

I am caching data in an ASP.NET website through the System.Web.Caching.Cache-Class, because retrieving the data is very costly and it changes only once in a while, when our content people change data in the backend.

So I create the data in Application_Start and store it in Cache, with an expiration time of 1 day.

When accessing the data (happens on many pages of the website), I have something like this now in a static CachedData class:

public static List<Kategorie> GetKategorieTitelListe(Cache appCache)
{
    // get Data out of Cache
    List<Kategorie> katList = appCache[CachedData.NaviDataKey] as List<Kategorie>;
    // Cache expired, retrieve and store again
    if (katList == null)
    {
            katList = DataTools.BuildKategorienTitelListe();
            appCache.Insert(CachedData.NaviDataKey, katList, null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(1d), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration);
    }
    return katList;
}

The problem I see with this code is that its not threadsafe.
If two users open two of these pages at the same time and the cache just ran out, there is a risk the data while be retrieved multiple times.

But if I lock the method body, I will run into performance troubles, because only one user at a time can get the data list.

Is there an easy way to prevent this? What’s best practice for a case like this?

Answer 1

You are right, your code is not thread safe.

// this must be class level variable!!!
private static readonly object locker = new object();

    public static List<Kategorie> GetKategorieTitelListe(Cache appCache)
    {
        // get Data out of Cache
        List<Kategorie> katList = appCache[CachedData.NaviDataKey] as List<Kategorie>;

        // Cache expired, retrieve and store again
        if (katList == null)
        {
            lock (locker)
            {
                katList = appCache[CachedData.NaviDataKey] as List<Kategorie>;

                if (katlist == null)  // make sure that waiting thread is not executing second time
                {
                    katList = DataTools.BuildKategorienTitelListe();
                    appCache.Insert(CachedData.NaviDataKey, katList, null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(1d), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration);
                }
            }
        }
        return katList;
    }