Question

I need to cache a large (but variable) number of smallish (1 kilobyte to 10 megabytes) files in memory, for a C application (in a *nix environment). Since I don’t want to eat all my memory, I’d like to set hard memory limit (say, 64 megabytes) and push files into a hash table with the file name as the key and dispose of the entries with the least use. What I believe I need is an LRU cache.

Really, I’d rather not roll my own so if someone knows where I can find a workable library, please point the way? Failing that, can someone provide a simple example of an LRU cache in C? Related posts indicated that a hash table with a doubly-linked list, but I’m not even clear on how a doubly-linked list keeps LRU.

Side note: I realize this is almost exactly the function of memcache, but it’s not an option for me. I also took a look at the source hoping to enlighten myself on LRU caching, with no success.

Answer 1

Related posts indicated that a hash table with a doubly-linked list, but I’m not even clear on how a doubly-linked list keeps LRU.

I’m just taking a guess here, but you could do something like this (using pseudo-C here because I’m lazy). Here are the basic data structures:

struct File
{
    // hash key
    string Name;

    // doubly-linked list
    File* Previous;
    File* Next;

    // other file data...
}

struct Cache
{
    HashTable<string, File*> Table // some existing hashtable implementation
    File* First; // most recent
    File* Last;  // least recent
}

And here’s how you’d open and close a file:

File* Open(Cache* cache, string name)
{
    if (look up name in cache->Table succeeds)
    {
        File* found = find it from the hash table lookup
        move it to the front of the list
    }
    else
    {
        File* newFile = open the file and create a new node for it

        insert it at the beginning of the list

        if (the cache is full now)
        {
            remove the last file from the list
            close it
            remove it from the hashtable too
        }
    }
}

The hashtable lets you find nodes by name quickly, and the linked-list lets you maintain them in use order. Since they point to the same nodes, you can switch between them. This lets you look a file up by name, but then move it around in the list afterwards.

But I could be totally wrong about all of this.