Commit 5eca021d authored by Kevin Christopher Henry's avatar Kevin Christopher Henry Committed by Tim Graham
Browse files

Documentation -- Improved description of cache arguments 

- Fixed some grammar and formatting mistakes
- Added the type and default for CULL_FREQUENCY
- Made the note on culling the entire cache more precise. (It's actually
  slower on the filesystem backend.)
parent baec6a26

docs/topics/cache.txt

+13 −16
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -341,40 +341,37 @@ been well-tested and are easy to use. 
Cache arguments

---------------



In addition to the defining the engine and name of the each cache

backend, each cache backend can be given additional arguments to

control caching behavior. These arguments are provided as additional

keys in the :setting:`CACHES` setting. Valid arguments are as follows:

Each cache backend can be given additional arguments to control caching

behavior. These arguments are provided as additional keys in the

:setting:`CACHES` setting. Valid arguments are as follows:



* :setting:`TIMEOUT <CACHES-TIMEOUT>`: The default timeout, in

  seconds, to use for the cache. This argument defaults to 300

  seconds, to use for the cache. This argument defaults to ``300``

  seconds (5 minutes).



* :setting:`OPTIONS <CACHES-OPTIONS>`: Any options that should be

  passed to cache backend. The list options understood by each

  backend vary with each backend.

  passed to the cache backend. The list of valid options will vary

  with each backend, and cache backends backed by a third-party library

  will pass their options directly to the underlying cache library.



  Cache backends that implement their own culling strategy (i.e.,

  the ``locmem``, ``filesystem`` and ``database`` backends) will

  honor the following options:



  * ``MAX_ENTRIES``: the maximum number of entries allowed in

  * ``MAX_ENTRIES``: The maximum number of entries allowed in

    the cache before old values are deleted. This argument

    defaults to ``300``.



  * ``CULL_FREQUENCY``: The fraction of entries that are culled

    when ``MAX_ENTRIES`` is reached. The actual ratio is

    ``1/CULL_FREQUENCY``, so set ``CULL_FREQUENCY``: to ``2`` to

    cull half of the entries when ``MAX_ENTRIES`` is reached.

    ``1 / CULL_FREQUENCY``, so set ``CULL_FREQUENCY`` to ``2`` to

    cull half the entries when ``MAX_ENTRIES`` is reached. This argument

    should be an integer and defaults to ``3``.



    A value of ``0`` for ``CULL_FREQUENCY`` means that the

    entire cache will be dumped when ``MAX_ENTRIES`` is reached.

    This makes culling *much* faster at the expense of more

    cache misses.



  Cache backends backed by a third-party library will pass their

  options directly to the underlying cache library. As a result,

  the list of valid options depends on the library in use.

    On some backends (``database`` in particular) this makes culling *much*

    faster at the expense of more cache misses.



* :setting:`KEY_PREFIX <CACHES-KEY_PREFIX>`: A string that will be

  automatically included (prepended by default) to all cache keys