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Advanced caching module by Robert Douglass
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http://drupal.org/project/advcache
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Contact: http://drupal.org/user/5449/contact
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For Drupal 5.x, specifically rolled against Drupal 5.10
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## What it does ##
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The advanced caching module is mostly a set of patches and a supporting module
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to bring caching to Drupal core in places where it is needed yet currently
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unavailable. These include caching nodes, comments, taxonomy (terms, trees,
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vocabularies and terms-per-node), path aliases, and search results.
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The module maintains a series of dedicated cache tables and utilizes Drupal's
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caching API to safely and effeciently cache data. The main beneficiary from
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these caching strategies will be authenticated users who have only one role
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(ie, non-admins). This is a group of site users that are traditionally unaffected
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by Drupal's page cache mechanism.
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## How it does it ##
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Beyond installing and enabling the advcache module, you must apply some or all
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of the patches that come with it. The typical pattern for applying patches is:
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cd path/to/Drupal/
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patch < sites/all/modules/advcache/search_cache.patch
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You may have to answer some questions about the locations of the files that
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are to be patched.
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Here is a description of the included patches and whether there are any reasons
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you shouldn't use them. WARNING: Three of the caching patches are known to have bugs in them and have been marked as broken. Please don't use them and revert them if you have applied them. Of course, patches to fix them are welcome!:
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block_cache.patch - Caches the list of enabled blocks per user per theme. This
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avoids a very expensive query and the processing of the resultset in PHP.
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This patch shaves 1.5 ms off of each and every page load, anonymous as well as
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authenticated, on my MacBook. This patch is compatible with the blockcache module.
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In fact, the two compliment each other.
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block_cache.patch - Caches the list of enabled blocks per user per theme. This
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avoids a very expensive query and the processing of the resultset in PHP.
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This patch shaves 1.5 ms off of each and every page load, anonymous as well as
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authenticated, on my MacBook. This patch is compatible with the blockcache module.
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In fact, the two compliment each other.
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comment_cache.patch - Caches built comments. "New" markers show up as expected
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and you will still be able to change the display of the comments (flat, threaded
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etc.).
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BROKEN forum_cache.patch - Caches the forum structure, which is a relatively heavy
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block of PHP code with several SQL queries. This patch violates any
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modules that rewrite taxonomy queries. Please notify me of examples of modules
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that use db_rewrite_sql to rewrite taxonomy queries so that I can update the
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documentation. If you have any such modules do not apply this patch.
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node_cache.patch - Caches built nodes. Nodes are cached using a key that is a
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combination of node id and the unique combination of roles that a user has, so this
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is guaranteed to play safe with role-based access schemes. By default, node_cache
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will not cache poll nodes, as poll's need to determine whether or not a user has
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before displaying a node is broken by the caching.
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BROKEN path_cache.patch - Caches the results of drupal_lookup_path() per page. If you
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don't have the path module turned on and you don't have any path aliases at all,
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you don't need this patch. Otherwise this will cut one query per page for every
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link on that page. Thus if you have pages that have hundreds of links, this patch
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will cut hundreds of queries from that page. This patch is the same patch that
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is currently found here, minus the changes to system.module and system.install:
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http://drupal.org/node/100301
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BROKEN search_cache.patch - Caches search results for popular search queries for
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authenticated, non-admin users who have only one user role. This patch cannot
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work with any node_access moudules (such as organic groups). The patch is smart
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enough to do nothing if you have modules that control node access installed,
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but if this is the case then you are better of not applying the patch.
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taxonomy_cache.patch - Caches built taxonomy trees, terms and vocabularies. Most
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importantly, it caches the terms-per-node for nodes. This patch violates any
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modules that rewrite taxonomy queries. Please notify me of examples of modules
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that use db_rewrite_sql to rewrite taxonomy queries so that I can update the
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documentation. If you have any such modules do not apply this patch.
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## Excluding certain content types from being cached ##
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Some content types like poll or advpoll cannot be cached with the node_cache.patch without breaking. To avoid this, or to prevent any given content type from being cached, set a variable in $conf in settings.php like follows:
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<?php
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$conf = array(
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'advcache_node_exclude_types' => array('poll', 'mytype1', 'mytype2' ....),
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);
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?>
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## Upgrading to new releases Advcache ##
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Eventually new releases of the advcache module will appear. Improvements and
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bugfixes will come along and you'll want to upgrade. Since you have patched
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core Drupal files, there are special considerations. You must first unpatch
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Drupal. Fortunately this is not any harder than patching in the first place.
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To unpatch, you repeat the process that you used when patching, only you use
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the -R flag to tell patch to do it in reverse:
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cd path/to/Drupal/
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patch -R < sites/all/modules/advcache/search_cache.patch
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## Memcache or other caching backends ##
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The fact that these patches all use the generic Drupal caching API is a boon to
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anyone who wants to use other caching backends. In particular, top site speeds
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can be achieved using these patches in conjunction with the Memcache API and Int-
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egration project: http://drupal.org/project/memcache
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## TODO ##
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- Benchmarks
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- Simpletest integration
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