GenCache

Generic cache for Elixir. It uses MFA (module / function / arguments) tuples as keys, so you can cache any function call with low development effort.

By relying on gen_statem, it is able to prevent duplicate work on concurrent requests on the same key, while keeping the API simple.

The generation of the cache value is done in a separate process, so the main GenServer loop is never blocked. Also it is possible to generate multiple different expensive values in parallel, with all the callers waiting for the result. This happens transparently to the caller.

All thanks to the awesome gen_statem module.

Usage

defmodule MyCache do
  use GenCache
end

# start the cache, that executes state entries purge every 1 second with a default ttl of 15 seconds
MyCache.start_link(purge_loop: :timer.seconds(1), default_ttl: :timer.seconds(15))

# this will execute the MFA tuple and store the result in the cache
# you should see "Hello World" printed to the console
res = MyCache.request({IO, :puts, ["Hello World"]})

# this will not execute the MFA tuple and just return the cached result
res = MyCache.request({IO, :puts, ["Hello World"]})

# remove a single entry from cache
MyCache.remove({IO, :puts, ["Hello World"]})

# Reset the complete cache
MyCache.reset()

# add custom ttl for the given key
res = MyCache.request({IO, :puts, ["Quick one"]}, ttl: :timer.seconds(5))

Options

Option	Default	Description
purge_loop	5000 (5s)	Interval in ms between cache purge cycles
ttl	30000 (30s)	Default time-to-live for cache entries in ms
verbose	false	Enable debug logging for purge cycles and expirations

Example with all options:

MyCache.start_link(
  purge_loop: :timer.seconds(10),
  ttl: :timer.minutes(5),
  verbose: true  # enables debug logs for cache operations
)

Logging

Per-instance logging (verbose option)

Use the verbose: true option when starting a cache to enable debug logs for that specific instance:

# Silent (default) - no purge/expiration logs
MyCache.start_link()

# Verbose - logs purge cycles and expired keys
MyCache.start_link(verbose: true)

Global logging (Config module)

Control the Logger level for the entire GenCache module:

# Enable debug messages globally
GenCache.Config.log_debug()

# Only info messages and above
GenCache.Config.log_info()

Done

• configurable default timeout
• periodic cleanup of expired entries
• protect against raising exceptions in the MFA tuple

Installation

If available in Hex, the package can be installed by adding gen_cache to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:gen_cache, "~> 0.2.0"}
  ]
end

Documentation can be generated with ExDoc and published on HexDocs. Once published, the docs can be found at https://hexdocs.pm/gen_cache.