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.. index::
   single: Cache

HTTP Cache

The nature of rich web applications means that they're dynamic. No matter how efficient your application, each request will always contain more overhead than serving a static file.

And for most Web applications, that's fine. Symfony is lightning fast, and unless you're doing some serious heavy-lifting, each request will come back quickly without putting too much stress on your server.

But as your site grows, that overhead can become a problem. The processing that's normally performed on every request should be done only once. This is exactly what caching aims to accomplish.

Caching on the Shoulders of Giants

The most effective way to improve performance of an application is to cache the full output of a page and then bypass the application entirely on each subsequent request. Of course, this isn't always possible for highly dynamic websites, or is it? In this chapter, you'll see how the Symfony cache system works and why this is the best possible approach.

The Symfony cache system is different because it relies on the simplicity and power of the HTTP cache as defined in the :term:`HTTP specification`. Instead of reinventing a caching methodology, Symfony embraces the standard that defines basic communication on the Web. Once you understand the fundamental HTTP validation and expiration caching models, you'll be ready to master the Symfony cache system.

For the purposes of learning how to cache with Symfony, the subject is covered in four steps:

  1. A :ref:`gateway cache <gateway-caches>`, or reverse proxy, is an independent layer that sits in front of your application. The reverse proxy caches responses as they're returned from your application and answers requests with cached responses before they hit your application. Symfony provides its own reverse proxy, but any reverse proxy can be used.
  2. :ref:`HTTP cache <http-cache-introduction>` headers are used to communicate with the gateway cache and any other caches between your application and the client. Symfony provides sensible defaults and a powerful interface for interacting with the cache headers.
  3. HTTP :ref:`expiration and validation <http-expiration-validation>` are the two models used for determining whether cached content is fresh (can be reused from the cache) or stale (should be regenerated by the application).
  4. :ref:`Edge Side Includes <edge-side-includes>` (ESI) allow HTTP cache to be used to cache page fragments (even nested fragments) independently. With ESI, you can even cache an entire page for 60 minutes, but an embedded sidebar for only 5 minutes.

Since caching with HTTP isn't unique to Symfony, many articles already exist on the topic. If you're new to HTTP caching, Ryan Tomayko's article Things Caches Do is highly recommended . Another in-depth resource is Mark Nottingham's Cache Tutorial.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Proxy
   single: Cache; Reverse proxy
   single: Cache; Gateway

Caching with a Gateway Cache

When caching with HTTP, the cache is separated from your application entirely and sits between your application and the client making the request.

The job of the cache is to accept requests from the client and pass them back to your application. The cache will also receive responses back from your application and forward them on to the client. The cache is the "middle-man" of the request-response communication between the client and your application.

Along the way, the cache will store each response that is deemed "cacheable" (See :ref:`http-cache-introduction`). If the same resource is requested again, the cache sends the cached response to the client, ignoring your application entirely.

This type of cache is known as a HTTP gateway cache and many exist such as Varnish, Squid in reverse proxy mode, and the Symfony reverse proxy.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Types of

Types of Caches

But a gateway cache isn't the only type of cache. In fact, the HTTP cache headers sent by your application are consumed and interpreted by up to three different types of caches:

  • Browser caches: Every browser comes with its own local cache that is mainly useful for when you hit "back" or for images and other assets. The browser cache is a private cache as cached resources aren't shared with anyone else;
  • Proxy caches: A proxy is a shared cache as many people can be behind a single one. It's usually installed by large corporations and ISPs to reduce latency and network traffic;
  • Gateway caches: Like a proxy, it's also a shared cache but on the server side. Installed by network administrators, it makes websites more scalable, reliable and performant.

Tip

Gateway caches are sometimes referred to as reverse proxy caches, surrogate caches, or even HTTP accelerators.

Note

The significance of private versus shared caches will become more obvious when caching responses containing content that is specific to exactly one user (e.g. account information) is discussed.

Each response from your application will likely go through one or both of the first two cache types. These caches are outside of your control but follow the HTTP cache directions set in the response.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Symfony reverse proxy

Symfony Reverse Proxy

Symfony comes with a reverse proxy (also called a gateway cache) written in PHP. Enable it and cacheable responses from your application will start to be cached right away. Installing it is just as easy. Each new Symfony application comes with a pre-configured caching kernel (AppCache) that wraps the default one (AppKernel). The caching Kernel is the reverse proxy.

To enable caching, modify the code of a front controller to use the caching kernel:

// web/app.php
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

// ...
$kernel = new AppKernel('prod', false);
$kernel->loadClassCache();
// wrap the default AppKernel with the AppCache one
$kernel = new AppCache($kernel);

$request = Request::createFromGlobals();

$response = $kernel->handle($request);
$response->send();

$kernel->terminate($request, $response);

The caching kernel will immediately act as a reverse proxy - caching responses from your application and returning them to the client.

Caution!

If you're using the :ref:`framework.http_method_override <configuration-framework-http_method_override>` option to read the HTTP method from a _method parameter, see the above link for a tweak you need to make.

Tip

The cache kernel has a special getLog() method that returns a string representation of what happened in the cache layer. In the development environment, use it to debug and validate your cache strategy:

error_log($kernel->getLog());

The AppCache object has a sensible default configuration, but it can be finely tuned via a set of options you can set by overriding the :method:`Symfony\\Bundle\\FrameworkBundle\\HttpCache\\HttpCache::getOptions` method:

// app/AppCache.php
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\HttpCache\HttpCache;

class AppCache extends HttpCache
{
    protected function getOptions()
    {
        return array(
            'debug'                  => false,
            'default_ttl'            => 0,
            'private_headers'        => array('Authorization', 'Cookie'),
            'allow_reload'           => false,
            'allow_revalidate'       => false,
            'stale_while_revalidate' => 2,
            'stale_if_error'         => 60,
        );
    }
}

Tip

Unless overridden in getOptions(), the debug option will be set to automatically be the debug value of the wrapped AppKernel.

Here is a list of the main options:

default_ttl
The number of seconds that a cache entry should be considered fresh when no explicit freshness information is provided in a response. Explicit Cache-Control or Expires headers override this value (default: 0).
private_headers
Set of request headers that trigger "private" Cache-Control behavior on responses that don't explicitly state whether the response is public or private via a Cache-Control directive (default: Authorization and Cookie).
allow_reload
Specifies whether the client can force a cache reload by including a Cache-Control "no-cache" directive in the request. Set it to true for compliance with RFC 2616 (default: false).
allow_revalidate
Specifies whether the client can force a cache revalidate by including a Cache-Control "max-age=0" directive in the request. Set it to true for compliance with RFC 2616 (default: false).
stale_while_revalidate
Specifies the default number of seconds (the granularity is the second as the Response TTL precision is a second) during which the cache can immediately return a stale response while it revalidates it in the background (default: 2); this setting is overridden by the stale-while-revalidate HTTP Cache-Control extension (see RFC 5861).
stale_if_error
Specifies the default number of seconds (the granularity is the second) during which the cache can serve a stale response when an error is encountered (default: 60). This setting is overridden by the stale-if-error HTTP Cache-Control extension (see RFC 5861).

If debug is true, Symfony automatically adds an X-Symfony-Cache header to the response containing useful information about cache hits and misses.

Changing from one Reverse Proxy to another

The Symfony reverse proxy is a great tool to use when developing your website or when you deploy your website to a shared host where you cannot install anything beyond PHP code. But being written in PHP, it cannot be as fast as a proxy written in C. That's why it is highly recommended you use Varnish or Squid on your production servers if possible. The good news is that the switch from one proxy server to another is easy and transparent as no code modification is needed in your application. Start easy with the Symfony reverse proxy and upgrade later to Varnish when your traffic increases.

For more information on using Varnish with Symfony, see the :doc:`How to use Varnish </cookbook/cache/varnish>` cookbook chapter.

Note

The performance of the Symfony reverse proxy is independent of the complexity of the application. That's because the application kernel is only booted when the request needs to be forwarded to it.

.. index::
   single: Cache; HTTP

Introduction to HTTP Caching

To take advantage of the available cache layers, your application must be able to communicate which responses are cacheable and the rules that govern when/how that cache should become stale. This is done by setting HTTP cache headers on the response.

Tip

Keep in mind that "HTTP" is nothing more than the language (a simple text language) that web clients (e.g. browsers) and web servers use to communicate with each other. HTTP caching is the part of that language that allows clients and servers to exchange information related to caching.

HTTP specifies four response cache headers that are looked at here:

  • Cache-Control
  • Expires
  • ETag
  • Last-Modified

The most important and versatile header is the Cache-Control header, which is actually a collection of various cache information.

Note

Each of the headers will be explained in full detail in the :ref:`http-expiration-validation` section.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Cache-Control header
   single: HTTP headers; Cache-Control

The Cache-Control Header

The Cache-Control header is unique in that it contains not one, but various pieces of information about the cacheability of a response. Each piece of information is separated by a comma:

Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, must-revalidate

Cache-Control: max-age=3600, must-revalidate

Symfony provides an abstraction around the Cache-Control header to make its creation more manageable:

// ...

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;

$response = new Response();

// mark the response as either public or private
$response->setPublic();
$response->setPrivate();

// set the private or shared max age
$response->setMaxAge(600);
$response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

// set a custom Cache-Control directive
$response->headers->addCacheControlDirective('must-revalidate', true);

Tip

If you need to set cache headers for many different controller actions, you might want to look into the FOSHttpCacheBundle. It provides a way to define cache headers based on the URL pattern and other request properties.

Public vs Private Responses

Both gateway and proxy caches are considered "shared" caches as the cached content is shared by more than one user. If a user-specific response were ever mistakenly stored by a shared cache, it might be returned later to any number of different users. Imagine if your account information were cached and then returned to every subsequent user who asked for their account page!

To handle this situation, every response may be set to be public or private:

public
Indicates that the response may be cached by both private and shared caches.
private
Indicates that all or part of the response message is intended for a single user and must not be cached by a shared cache.

Symfony conservatively defaults each response to be private. To take advantage of shared caches (like the Symfony reverse proxy), the response will need to be explicitly set as public.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Safe methods

Safe Methods

HTTP caching only works for "safe" HTTP methods (like GET and HEAD). Being safe means that you never change the application's state on the server when serving the request (you can of course log information, cache data, etc). This has two very reasonable consequences:

  • You should never change the state of your application when responding to a GET or HEAD request. Even if you don't use a gateway cache, the presence of proxy caches means that any GET or HEAD request may or may not actually hit your server;
  • Don't expect PUT, POST or DELETE methods to cache. These methods are meant to be used when mutating the state of your application (e.g. deleting a blog post). Caching them would prevent certain requests from hitting and mutating your application.

Caching Rules and Defaults

HTTP 1.1 allows caching anything by default unless there is an explicit Cache-Control header. In practice, most caches do nothing when requests have a cookie, an authorization header, use a non-safe method (i.e. PUT, POST, DELETE), or when responses have a redirect status code.

Symfony automatically sets a sensible and conservative Cache-Control header when none is set by the developer by following these rules:

  • If no cache header is defined (Cache-Control, Expires, ETag or Last-Modified), Cache-Control is set to no-cache, meaning that the response will not be cached;
  • If Cache-Control is empty (but one of the other cache headers is present), its value is set to private, must-revalidate;
  • But if at least one Cache-Control directive is set, and no public or private directives have been explicitly added, Symfony adds the private directive automatically (except when s-maxage is set).

HTTP Expiration, Validation and Invalidation

The HTTP specification defines two caching models:

  • With the expiration model, you simply specify how long a response should be considered "fresh" by including a Cache-Control and/or an Expires header. Caches that understand expiration will not make the same request until the cached version reaches its expiration time and becomes "stale";
  • When pages are really dynamic (i.e. their representation changes often), the validation model is often necessary. With this model, the cache stores the response, but asks the server on each request whether or not the cached response is still valid. The application uses a unique response identifier (the Etag header) and/or a timestamp (the Last-Modified header) to check if the page has changed since being cached.

The goal of both models is to never generate the same response twice by relying on a cache to store and return "fresh" responses. To achieve long caching times but still provide updated content immediately, cache invalidation is sometimes used.

Reading the HTTP Specification

The HTTP specification defines a simple but powerful language in which clients and servers can communicate. As a web developer, the request-response model of the specification dominates your work. Unfortunately, the actual specification document - RFC 2616 - can be difficult to read.

There is an ongoing effort (HTTP Bis) to rewrite the RFC 2616. It does not describe a new version of HTTP, but mostly clarifies the original HTTP specification. The organization is also improved as the specification is split into seven parts; everything related to HTTP caching can be found in two dedicated parts (P4 - Conditional Requests and P6 - Caching: Browser and intermediary caches).

As a web developer, you are strongly urged to read the specification. Its clarity and power - even more than ten years after its creation - is invaluable. Don't be put-off by the appearance of the spec - its contents are much more beautiful than its cover.

.. index::
   single: Cache; HTTP expiration

Expiration

The expiration model is the more efficient and straightforward of the two caching models and should be used whenever possible. When a response is cached with an expiration, the cache will store the response and return it directly without hitting the application until it expires.

The expiration model can be accomplished using one of two, nearly identical, HTTP headers: Expires or Cache-Control.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Expires header
   single: HTTP headers; Expires

Expiration with the Expires Header

According to the HTTP specification, "the Expires header field gives the date/time after which the response is considered stale." The Expires header can be set with the setExpires() Response method. It takes a DateTime instance as an argument:

$date = new DateTime();
$date->modify('+600 seconds');

$response->setExpires($date);

The resulting HTTP header will look like this:

Expires: Thu, 01 Mar 2011 16:00:00 GMT

Note

The setExpires() method automatically converts the date to the GMT timezone as required by the specification.

Note that in HTTP versions before 1.1 the origin server wasn't required to send the Date header. Consequently, the cache (e.g. the browser) might need to rely on the local clock to evaluate the Expires header making the lifetime calculation vulnerable to clock skew. Another limitation of the Expires header is that the specification states that "HTTP/1.1 servers should not send Expires dates more than one year in the future."

.. index::
   single: Cache; Cache-Control header
   single: HTTP headers; Cache-Control

Expiration with the Cache-Control Header

Because of the Expires header limitations, most of the time, you should use the Cache-Control header instead. Recall that the Cache-Control header is used to specify many different cache directives. For expiration, there are two directives, max-age and s-maxage. The first one is used by all caches, whereas the second one is only taken into account by shared caches:

// Sets the number of seconds after which the response
// should no longer be considered fresh
$response->setMaxAge(600);

// Same as above but only for shared caches
$response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

The Cache-Control header would take on the following format (it may have additional directives):

Cache-Control: max-age=600, s-maxage=600

.. index::
   single: Cache; Validation

Validation

When a resource needs to be updated as soon as a change is made to the underlying data, the expiration model falls short. With the expiration model, the application won't be asked to return the updated response until the cache finally becomes stale.

The validation model addresses this issue. Under this model, the cache continues to store responses. The difference is that, for each request, the cache asks the application if the cached response is still valid or if it needs to be regenerated. If the cache is still valid, your application should return a 304 status code and no content. This tells the cache that it's ok to return the cached response.

Under this model, you only save CPU if you're able to determine that the cached response is still valid by doing less work than generating the whole page again (see below for an implementation example).

Tip

The 304 status code means "Not Modified". It's important because with this status code the response does not contain the actual content being requested. Instead, the response is simply a light-weight set of directions that tells the cache that it should use its stored version.

Like with expiration, there are two different HTTP headers that can be used to implement the validation model: ETag and Last-Modified.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Etag header
   single: HTTP headers; Etag

Validation with the ETag Header

The ETag header is a string header (called the "entity-tag") that uniquely identifies one representation of the target resource. It's entirely generated and set by your application so that you can tell, for example, if the /about resource that's stored by the cache is up-to-date with what your application would return. An ETag is like a fingerprint and is used to quickly compare if two different versions of a resource are equivalent. Like fingerprints, each ETag must be unique across all representations of the same resource.

To see a simple implementation, generate the ETag as the md5 of the content:

// src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    public function homepageAction(Request $request)
    {
        $response = $this->render('static/homepage.html.twig');
        $response->setETag(md5($response->getContent()));
        $response->setPublic(); // make sure the response is public/cacheable
        $response->isNotModified($request);

        return $response;
    }
}

The :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::isNotModified` method compares the If-None-Match sent with the Request with the ETag header set on the Response. If the two match, the method automatically sets the Response status code to 304.

Note

The cache sets the If-None-Match header on the request to the ETag of the original cached response before sending the request back to the app. This is how the cache and server communicate with each other and decide whether or not the resource has been updated since it was cached.

This algorithm is simple enough and very generic, but you need to create the whole Response before being able to compute the ETag, which is sub-optimal. In other words, it saves on bandwidth, but not CPU cycles.

In the :ref:`optimizing-cache-validation` section, you'll see how validation can be used more intelligently to determine the validity of a cache without doing so much work.

Tip

Symfony also supports weak ETags by passing true as the second argument to the :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::setEtag` method.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Last-Modified header
   single: HTTP headers; Last-Modified

Validation with the Last-Modified Header

The Last-Modified header is the second form of validation. According to the HTTP specification, "The Last-Modified header field indicates the date and time at which the origin server believes the representation was last modified." In other words, the application decides whether or not the cached content has been updated based on whether or not it's been updated since the response was cached.

For instance, you can use the latest update date for all the objects needed to compute the resource representation as the value for the Last-Modified header value:

// src/AppBundle/Controller/ArticleController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

// ...
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use AppBundle\Entity\Article;

class ArticleController extends Controller
{
    public function showAction(Article $article, Request $request)
    {
        $author = $article->getAuthor();

        $articleDate = new \DateTime($article->getUpdatedAt());
        $authorDate = new \DateTime($author->getUpdatedAt());

        $date = $authorDate > $articleDate ? $authorDate : $articleDate;

        $response = new Response();
        $response->setLastModified($date);
        // Set response as public. Otherwise it will be private by default.
        $response->setPublic();

        if ($response->isNotModified($request)) {
            return $response;
        }

        // ... do more work to populate the response with the full content

        return $response;
    }
}

The :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::isNotModified` method compares the If-Modified-Since header sent by the request with the Last-Modified header set on the response. If they are equivalent, the Response will be set to a 304 status code.

Note

The cache sets the If-Modified-Since header on the request to the Last-Modified of the original cached response before sending the request back to the app. This is how the cache and server communicate with each other and decide whether or not the resource has been updated since it was cached.

.. index::
   single: Cache; Conditional get
   single: HTTP; 304

Optimizing your Code with Validation

The main goal of any caching strategy is to lighten the load on the application. Put another way, the less you do in your application to return a 304 response, the better. The Response::isNotModified() method does exactly that by exposing a simple and efficient pattern:

// src/AppBundle/Controller/ArticleController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

// ...
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;

class ArticleController extends Controller
{
    public function showAction($articleSlug, Request $request)
    {
        // Get the minimum information to compute
        // the ETag or the Last-Modified value
        // (based on the Request, data is retrieved from
        // a database or a key-value store for instance)
        $article = ...;

        // create a Response with an ETag and/or a Last-Modified header
        $response = new Response();
        $response->setETag($article->computeETag());
        $response->setLastModified($article->getPublishedAt());

        // Set response as public. Otherwise it will be private by default.
        $response->setPublic();

        // Check that the Response is not modified for the given Request
        if ($response->isNotModified($request)) {
            // return the 304 Response immediately
            return $response;
        }

        // do more work here - like retrieving more data
        $comments = ...;

        // or render a template with the $response you've already started
        return $this->render('article/show.html.twig', array(
            'article' => $article,
            'comments' => $comments
        ), $response);
    }
}

When the Response is not modified, the isNotModified() automatically sets the response status code to 304, removes the content, and removes some headers that must not be present for 304 responses (see :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::setNotModified`).

.. index::
   single: Cache; Vary
   single: HTTP headers; Vary

Varying the Response

So far, it's been assumed that each URI has exactly one representation of the target resource. By default, HTTP caching is done by using the URI of the resource as the cache key. If two people request the same URI of a cacheable resource, the second person will receive the cached version.

Sometimes this isn't enough and different versions of the same URI need to be cached based on one or more request header values. For instance, if you compress pages when the client supports it, any given URI has two representations: one when the client supports compression, and one when it does not. This determination is done by the value of the Accept-Encoding request header.

In this case, you need the cache to store both a compressed and uncompressed version of the response for the particular URI and return them based on the request's Accept-Encoding value. This is done by using the Vary response header, which is a comma-separated list of different headers whose values trigger a different representation of the requested resource:

Vary: Accept-Encoding, User-Agent

Tip

This particular Vary header would cache different versions of each resource based on the URI and the value of the Accept-Encoding and User-Agent request header.

The Response object offers a clean interface for managing the Vary header:

// set one vary header
$response->setVary('Accept-Encoding');

// set multiple vary headers
$response->setVary(array('Accept-Encoding', 'User-Agent'));

The setVary() method takes a header name or an array of header names for which the response varies.

Expiration and Validation

You can of course use both validation and expiration within the same Response. As expiration wins over validation, you can easily benefit from the best of both worlds. In other words, by using both expiration and validation, you can instruct the cache to serve the cached content, while checking back at some interval (the expiration) to verify that the content is still valid.

Tip

You can also define HTTP caching headers for expiration and validation by using annotations. See the FrameworkExtraBundle documentation.

.. index::
   pair: Cache; Configuration

More Response Methods

The Response class provides many more methods related to the cache. Here are the most useful ones:

// Marks the Response stale
$response->expire();

// Force the response to return a proper 304 response with no content
$response->setNotModified();

Additionally, most cache-related HTTP headers can be set via the single :method:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpFoundation\\Response::setCache` method:

// Set cache settings in one call
$response->setCache(array(
    'etag'          => $etag,
    'last_modified' => $date,
    'max_age'       => 10,
    's_maxage'      => 10,
    'public'        => true,
    // 'private'    => true,
));

.. index::
   single: Cache; Invalidation

Cache Invalidation

"There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things." -- Phil Karlton

Once an URL is cached by a gateway cache, the cache will not ask the application for that content anymore. This allows the cache to provide fast responses and reduces the load on your application. However, you risk delivering outdated content. A way out of this dilemma is to use long cache lifetimes, but to actively notify the gateway cache when content changes. Reverse proxies usually provide a channel to receive such notifications, typically through special HTTP requests.

Caution!

While cache invalidation is powerful, avoid it when possible. If you fail to invalidate something, outdated caches will be served for a potentially long time. Instead, use short cache lifetimes or use the validation model, and adjust your controllers to perform efficient validation checks as explained in :ref:`optimizing-cache-validation`.

Furthermore, since invalidation is a topic specific to each type of reverse proxy, using this concept will tie you to a specific reverse proxy or need additional efforts to support different proxies.

Sometimes, however, you need that extra performance you can get when explicitly invalidating. For invalidation, your application needs to detect when content changes and tell the cache to remove the URLs which contain that data from its cache.

Tip

If you want to use cache invalidation, have a look at the FOSHttpCacheBundle. This bundle provides services to help with various cache invalidation concepts and also documents the configuration for a couple of common caching proxies.

If one content corresponds to one URL, the PURGE model works well. You send a request to the cache proxy with the HTTP method PURGE (using the word "PURGE" is a convention, technically this can be any string) instead of GET and make the cache proxy detect this and remove the data from the cache instead of going to the application to get a response.

Here is how you can configure the Symfony reverse proxy to support the PURGE HTTP method:

// app/AppCache.php

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\HttpCache\HttpCache;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
// ...

class AppCache extends HttpCache
{
    protected function invalidate(Request $request, $catch = false)
    {
        if ('PURGE' !== $request->getMethod()) {
            return parent::invalidate($request, $catch);
        }

        if ('127.0.0.1' !== $request->getClientIp()) {
            return new Response(
                'Invalid HTTP method',
                Response::HTTP_BAD_REQUEST
            );
        }

        $response = new Response();
        if ($this->getStore()->purge($request->getUri())) {
            $response->setStatusCode(200, 'Purged');
        } else {
            $response->setStatusCode(200, 'Not found');
        }

        return $response;
    }
}

Caution!

You must protect the PURGE HTTP method somehow to avoid random people purging your cached data.

Purge instructs the cache to drop a resource in all its variants (according to the Vary header, see above). An alternative to purging is refreshing a content. Refreshing means that the caching proxy is instructed to discard its local cache and fetch the content again. This way, the new content is already available in the cache. The drawback of refreshing is that variants are not invalidated.

In many applications, the same content bit is used on various pages with different URLs. More flexible concepts exist for those cases:

  • Banning invalidates responses matching regular expressions on the URL or other criteria;
  • Cache tagging lets you add a tag for each content used in a response so that you can invalidate all URLs containing a certain content.
.. index::
   single: Cache; ESI
   single: ESI

Using Edge Side Includes

Gateway caches are a great way to make your website perform better. But they have one limitation: they can only cache whole pages. If you can't cache whole pages or if parts of a page has "more" dynamic parts, you are out of luck. Fortunately, Symfony provides a solution for these cases, based on a technology called ESI, or Edge Side Includes. Akamai wrote this specification almost 10 years ago and it allows specific parts of a page to have a different caching strategy than the main page.

The ESI specification describes tags you can embed in your pages to communicate with the gateway cache. Only one tag is implemented in Symfony, include, as this is the only useful one outside of Akamai context:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <body>
        <!-- ... some content -->

        <!-- Embed the content of another page here -->
        <esi:include src="http://..." />

        <!-- ... more content -->
    </body>
</html>

Note

Notice from the example that each ESI tag has a fully-qualified URL. An ESI tag represents a page fragment that can be fetched via the given URL.

When a request is handled, the gateway cache fetches the entire page from its cache or requests it from the backend application. If the response contains one or more ESI tags, these are processed in the same way. In other words, the gateway cache either retrieves the included page fragment from its cache or requests the page fragment from the backend application again. When all the ESI tags have been resolved, the gateway cache merges each into the main page and sends the final content to the client.

All of this happens transparently at the gateway cache level (i.e. outside of your application). As you'll see, if you choose to take advantage of ESI tags, Symfony makes the process of including them almost effortless.

Using ESI in Symfony

First, to use ESI, be sure to enable it in your application configuration:

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: yaml

        # app/config/config.yml
        framework:
            # ...
            esi: { enabled: true }

    .. code-block:: xml

        <!-- app/config/config.xml -->
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
        <container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
            xmlns:framework="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony"
            xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

            <framework:config>
                <!-- ... -->
                <framework:esi enabled="true" />
            </framework:config>
        </container>

    .. code-block:: php

        // app/config/config.php
        $container->loadFromExtension('framework', array(
            // ...
            'esi' => array('enabled' => true),
        ));

Now, suppose you have a page that is relatively static, except for a news ticker at the bottom of the content. With ESI, you can cache the news ticker independent of the rest of the page.

// src/AppBundle/Controller/DefaultController.php

// ...
class DefaultController extends Controller
{
    public function aboutAction()
    {
        $response = $this->render('static/about.html.twig');
        // set the shared max age - which also marks the response as public
        $response->setSharedMaxAge(600);

        return $response;
    }
}

In this example, the full-page cache has a lifetime of ten minutes. Next, include the news ticker in the template by embedding an action. This is done via the render helper (See :ref:`templating-embedding-controller` for more details).

As the embedded content comes from another page (or controller for that matter), Symfony uses the standard render helper to configure ESI tags:

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: twig

        {# app/Resources/views/static/about.html.twig #}

        {# you can use a controller reference #}
        {{ render_esi(controller('AppBundle:News:latest', { 'maxPerPage': 5 })) }}

        {# ... or a URL #}
        {{ render_esi(url('latest_news', { 'maxPerPage': 5 })) }}

    .. code-block:: html+php

        <!-- app/Resources/views/static/about.html.php -->

        <!-- you can use a controller reference -->
        <?php echo $view['actions']->render(
            new \Symfony\Component\HttpKernel\Controller\ControllerReference(
                'AppBundle:News:latest',
                array('maxPerPage' => 5)
            ),
            array('strategy' => 'esi')
        ) ?>

        <!-- ... or a URL -->
        <?php echo $view['actions']->render(
            // The url() method was introduced in Symfony 2.8. Prior to 2.8,
            // you had to use generate($name, $parameters, UrlGeneratorInterface::ABSOLUTE_URL)
            $view['router']->url(
                'latest_news',
                array('maxPerPage' => 5),
            ),
            array('strategy' => 'esi'),
        ) ?>

By using the esi renderer (via the render_esi Twig function), you tell Symfony that the action should be rendered as an ESI tag. You might be wondering why you would want to use a helper instead of just writing the ESI tag yourself. That's because using a helper makes your application work even if there is no gateway cache installed.

Tip

As you'll see below, the maxPerPage variable you pass is available as an argument to your controller (i.e. $maxPerPage). The variables passed through render_esi also become part of the cache key so that you have unique caches for each combination of variables and values.

When using the default render function (or setting the renderer to inline), Symfony merges the included page content into the main one before sending the response to the client. But if you use the esi renderer (i.e. call render_esi) and if Symfony detects that it's talking to a gateway cache that supports ESI, it generates an ESI include tag. But if there is no gateway cache or if it does not support ESI, Symfony will just merge the included page content within the main one as it would have done if you had used render.

Note

Symfony detects if a gateway cache supports ESI via another Akamai specification that is supported out of the box by the Symfony reverse proxy.

The embedded action can now specify its own caching rules, entirely independent of the master page.

// src/AppBundle/Controller/NewsController.php
namespace AppBundle\Controller;

// ...
class NewsController extends Controller
{
    public function latestAction($maxPerPage)
    {
        // ...
        $response->setSharedMaxAge(60);

        return $response;
    }
}

With ESI, the full page cache will be valid for 600 seconds, but the news component cache will only last for 60 seconds.

When using a controller reference, the ESI tag should reference the embedded action as an accessible URL so the gateway cache can fetch it independently of the rest of the page. Symfony takes care of generating a unique URL for any controller reference and it is able to route them properly thanks to the :class:`Symfony\\Component\\HttpKernel\\EventListener\\FragmentListener` that must be enabled in your configuration:

.. configuration-block::

    .. code-block:: yaml

        # app/config/config.yml
        framework:
            # ...
            fragments: { path: /_fragment }

    .. code-block:: xml

        <!-- app/config/config.xml -->
        <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
        <container xmlns="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services"
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
            xmlns:doctrine="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/framework"
            xsi:schemaLocation="http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/services/services-1.0.xsd
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony
                http://symfony.com/schema/dic/symfony/symfony-1.0.xsd">

            <!-- ... -->
            <framework:config>
                <framework:fragments path="/_fragment" />
            </framework:config>
        </container>

    .. code-block:: php

        // app/config/config.php
        $container->loadFromExtension('framework', array(
            // ...
            'fragments' => array('path' => '/_fragment'),
        ));

One great advantage of the ESI renderer is that you can make your application as dynamic as needed and at the same time, hit the application as little as possible.

Tip

The listener only responds to local IP addresses or :doc:`trusted proxies </cookbook/request/load_balancer_reverse_proxy>`.

Note

Once you start using ESI, remember to always use the s-maxage directive instead of max-age. As the browser only ever receives the aggregated resource, it is not aware of the sub-components, and so it will obey the max-age directive and cache the entire page. And you don't want that.

The render_esi helper supports two other useful options:

alt
Used as the alt attribute on the ESI tag, which allows you to specify an alternative URL to be used if the src cannot be found.
ignore_errors
If set to true, an onerror attribute will be added to the ESI with a value of continue indicating that, in the event of a failure, the gateway cache will simply remove the ESI tag silently.

Summary

Symfony was designed to follow the proven rules of the road: HTTP. Caching is no exception. Mastering the Symfony cache system means becoming familiar with the HTTP cache models and using them effectively. This means that, instead of relying only on Symfony documentation and code examples, you have access to a world of knowledge related to HTTP caching and gateway caches such as Varnish.

Learn more from the Cookbook