Question

I have considered about it for a long time.

I think I can’t use all the API/PHP extension (e.g. memcache, APC, Xcache) that need to install something in my remote Linux server, as my web host server is a shared server, what I just can do is to place files/scripts in the httpdocs folder.

Is there any suggestion for me that can let me programmatically use caching and access the memory?

Actually what I aim at is to find a “place” to save some data, that can be accessed in higher speed than entering the DB to fetch data, and also to reduce the loading to DB.
That means, it is not a must to use memory, if someone can give any other effective suggestions. e.g. will using text file be a good choice?(actually I am just guessing it)

The PHP version of mine is 5.2.17. And I am using MySQL DB.

Hope someone can give me suggestions

Answer 1

Flat files will always be the EASIEST way for caching, but it will be slower than accessing data directly from memory. You can use MySQL tables that are stored in memory. you need to change the engine used by tables to memory. NOTE that this will work only if your db is on the same server as web server.

Set up an in memory table with two columns key and value. variable name will be a key and its contents are values. if you need to cache array, objects then serialize the data before storing it.

If you need to limit the size of in memory table add one more column hitCount. for each read increase the count by one. while inserting new row, check for max number of rows and if its reached a limit delete the row with lowest hitCount.

To check which one is faster (file caching or in memory cache) use following code

<?php 
function getTime() 
{ 
    $a = explode (' ',microtime()); 
    return(double) $a[0] + $a[1]; 
} 
?>

<?php 
    $Start = getTime();
    //Data fetching tasks comes here
    $end = getTime(); 
    echo "time taken = ".number_format(($End - $Start),2)."seconds";
?>

If possible let us know how efficient it is… Thanks