Question

I’m looking for a Java framework which does basically some kind of layered caching with some actions needed between these layers.

Here is an example to explain my use case:

1. I wolud like to create some graphics (img01-img05) dynamically.
2. These graphics depend on a commen XML file (xml01) which is updated every few minutes (say 5min).
3. img05 needs one more file (xml02) to be created
4. now I want to get img01, which triggers:
   1. the retrieval of xml01
   2. and the extraction of data for the needed data for img01
5. now I want to get img02, which triggers:
   (the retrieval of xml01 is not needed because it is cached )
   1. and the extraction of data for the needed data for img02
6. now I want to get img05, which triggers:
   (the retrieval of xml01 is not needed because it is cached )
   1. the retrieval of xml02
   2. and the extraction of data for the needed data for img02
7. after a few minutes goto 4)

There could be more complicated use cases than this simplified example.

Is there something which could help me with these requirements?

Answer 1

I would do the following:

• Use Spring
• Create interfaces for getting your resources images and xml.
• Create classes which provide that functionality
• Use Ehcache and it’s spring annotation or ehcache-spring-annotations to provide the caching.

Your code is then completely free of the caching logic and the length of time for caching can be configured by configuring the Ehcache.