Memcache
skeleton of a thread safe updater for an incremental counter:
<?php
$key = "counter";
$value = $memcache->increment($key, 1);
if ($value === false) {
// --- read from DB ---
$query = "SELECT value FROM database";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
$db_value = $row["value"];
$add_value = $memcache->add($key, $db_value + 1, 0, 0);
if ($add_value === false) {
$value = $memcache->increment($key, 1)
if ($value === false) {
error_log ("counter update failed.");
}
} else {
$value = $db_value + 1;
}
}
// --- display counter value ---
echo $value;
?>
Memcache::add
(PECL memcache >= 0.2.0)
Memcache::add — Add an item to the server
Description
Memcache::add() stores variable
var with key only if such
key doesn't exist at the server yet.
Also you can use memcache_add() function.
Parameters
-
key -
The key that will be associated with the item.
-
var -
The variable to store. Strings and integers are stored as is, other types are stored serialized.
-
flag -
Use
MEMCACHE_COMPRESSEDto store the item compressed (uses zlib). -
expire -
Expiration time of the item. If it's equal to zero, the item will never expire. You can also use Unix timestamp or a number of seconds starting from current time, but in the latter case the number of seconds may not exceed 2592000 (30 days).
Return Values
Returns TRUE on success or FALSE on failure.
Returns FALSE if such key already exist. For the rest
Memcache::add() behaves similarly to
Memcache::set().
Examples
Example #1 Memcache::add() example
<?php
$memcache_obj = memcache_connect("localhost", 11211);
/* procedural API */
memcache_add($memcache_obj, 'var_key', 'test variable', false, 30);
/* OO API */
$memcache_obj->add('var_key', 'test variable', false, 30);
?>
See Also
- Memcache::set() - Store data at the server
- Memcache::replace() - Replace value of the existing item
add a note
User Contributed Notes
Memcache::add - [7 notes]
ktamas77 at gmail dot com ¶
4 years ago
roberto at spadim,com dot br ¶
6 years ago
[c.2007]
if you read source code for MMC_SERIALIZED you will see at line ~1555 that [a line ~1560]
!(is_string,is_long,is_double,is_bool)
[is] serialized and that serialized values are flaged as MMC_SERIALIZED for return (fetch) code unserialize these values again
Davide Renzi ¶
3 years ago
Race conditions happen on an heavy load server when more than one thread tries to execute memcache_add.
For example if thread A and thread B try to save the same key you can test that sometimes both return TRUE.
To have the right behaviour you can verify that the correct value is in the assigned key:
<?php
function memcache_safeadd(&$memcache_obj, $key, $value, $flag, $expire)
{
if (memcache_add($memcache_obj, $key, $value, $flag, $expire))
{
return ($value == memcache_get($memcache_obj, $key));
}
return FALSE;
}
?>
duerra at nospam dot yahoo dot com ¶
2 years ago
If you're interested in using compression, please note that, at least for PHP version 5.3.2 and Memcache version 3.0.4, when retrieving a key who's value is a numeric or boolean type, PHP throws a notice of the following:
Message: MemcachePool::get(): Failed to uncompress data
The way around this is to test your variable type before setting or adding it to Memcache, or even cast it as a string.
<?php
$key = 'mc_key';
$value = 12345;
$compress = is_bool($value) || is_int($value) || is_float($value) ? false : MEMCACHE_COMPRESSED;
$mc= new Memcache;
$mc->connect('localhost', 11211);
$mc->add($key, $value, $compress);
echo $mc->get($key);
//Alternative is to cast the variable
$value = is_scalar($value) ? (string)$value : $value;
$mc->add($key, $value, MEMCACHE_COMPRESSED);
?>
rune(at)intermedia(dot)no ¶
4 years ago
Key may not exceed 250 chars according to memcached protocol.
php at tapirpirates dot net ¶
5 years ago
memcache has no locking mechanism, but you could implement it manually.
basic locking through the add method:
<?php
// locks time out after 5 seconds
Define( 'LOCK_TIMEOUT', 5 );
$lock = $memcache->add( 'lock:' . $key, 1, false, LOCK_TIMEOUT );
if ( $lock ) {
// no lock on this key, so do what you want
$value = $memcache->get( $key );
$memcache->set( $key, $value+1 );
// release lock
$memcache->delete( 'lock:' . $key );
}
else {
// variable is currently locked, so do something else
}
?>
furthermore, you could implement a loop which checks if there is a lock, and if there is, wait some time and try again, until the lock is free.
remember: locking will heavily increase your memcache hits and obviously is not what memcache is made for. altough it's not possible for a lock to be forgotten (there's a timeout after all) there is the possibility to get locked out for a very long time.
an alternative may be to implement locking through apc_add (or shared memory), but i've never tried it.
if you absolutley have to implement locks, memcached is probably the wrong solution anyway.