Smarty book published & available

I hit send too soon by mistake!

Monte Ohrt wrote:
> Just a reminder, there is a wonderful book written long
ago that covers 
> Smarty caching. It's called the manual, and it's full
of explanations 
> and examples 
> 
> http://sm
arty.php.net/manual/en/caching.php
> 
> Not to mention tons of threads in the forums and wiki
pages re-iterating 
> this information in detail. I'm sure the new book has
useful information 
> too, but I'm curious, what is left out that creates
this chicken-egg 
> delima?

the fact that I don't understand the manuals in so far as
the concepts/functionality
of compiling/caching. - or at least I don't see how I can
extrapolate the
examples to a level of complexity where I can implement the
functionality into
my 'system'.

for instance there are a few lines of code on this page:

http://smarty.php.net/manual/en/caching.multiple.cach
es.php

if(!$smarty->is_cached('index.tpl',$my_cache_id)) {
     // No cache available, do variable assignments here.
     $contents = get_database_contents();
     $smarty->assign($contents);
}

but I have data coming from various sources - injected into
the *templates*
(which are often nested) at various places (using various
subclasses and
delegate classes for/of the Smarty class) on top of which
there are various
a load of plugin functions that retrieve data all on their
own (no input
fom the calling scripts) - and pretty much all of this is
conditional based on
reuqest and/or session variables. oh and there are quite
alot of places where
certain bits of content must be completely dynamic
(recalculated on each request
- on a per user basis) even when the gross of the page could
actually be cached
because it doesn't change on every request.... lastly I
like my caching functionality
to be completely generic so that it's reusable accross all
the sites that the
codebase in question is used on (a number of 'big'
clients) and the implementing it
on each site doesn't require reams of additional code in my
frontend|page scripts.

now just writing that made my head spin 

hopefully you see that it's not your docs at fault so much
as I have got a
rather complex codebase and I'm finding it:

a, hard to fully understand the compiling/caching paradigm
in smarty per se

and

b, harder still to take the examples in the docs and
extrapolate the concepts
into a design for flexible,generic production quality
caching mechanism which
i can actually implement (and would work: in terms of the
clients' requirements
for dynamic content - i.e. that 'truely' dynamic stuff
doesn't get cached, etc).

regards,
Jochem.


> 
> Monte
> 
> Jochem Maas wrote:
> 
>>
>> caching groups. (does that even exist or am I
confused?)
>> [complex] conditional caching.
>> caching pages where parts of the page needs to stay
completely
>> dynamic.
>>
>> It's difficult to describe what I mean because of
the fact that
>> I don't grok the smarty cache functionality - bit
of a chicken 'n' egg
>> problem - although what you mention sounds like it
could do me some good
>> to read....
>>
>> thanks for the feedback.
>>
> 

-- 
Smarty General Mailing List (http://smarty.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub
.php

On Tue, May 02, 2006 at 05:17:11PM +0200, Jochem Maas wrote:
[...]
> 
> hopefully you see that it's not your docs at fault so
much as I have got a
> rather complex codebase and I'm finding it:
> 
> a, hard to fully understand the compiling/caching
paradigm in smarty per se
> 
> and
> 
> b, harder still to take the examples in the docs and
extrapolate the 
> concepts
> into a design for flexible,generic production quality
caching mechanism 
> which
> i can actually implement (and would work: in terms of
the clients' 
> requirements
> for dynamic content - i.e. that 'truely' dynamic
stuff doesn't get cached, 
> etc).

my experience with smarty's caching is, that it's

a, works best if the whole system is built with caching in
mind, and
built around smarty's caching mechanisms.

and that you can

b, use any caching with smarty that you like: just leave
smarty's
caching off, and fetch the cached contents with your cache
logic and
assign them to template variables which are displayed
templates.
 
> regards,
> Jochem.

-- 
Smarty General Mailing List (http://smarty.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub
.php

Here's a few tips from my learning curve with caching:

http:
//smarty.incutio.com/?page=CacheAndCompile

and a thread from 18 months ago that talks to what messju
mentioned 
about creating your own caching logic:

--------------------------------------------------
 >
 >>>> i have a typical website serving left menu
block, top block, 
center block...
 >>>> etc.
 >>>>
 >>>> i currently use smarty include tags to
pull in these other blocks 
to a main
 >>>> index template.
 >>>>
 >>>> i have just realized that the data output
from include tags is 
cached along
 >>>> with the index page's cache - there seems
to be no way to keep the 
include
 >>>> tags dynamic. i want to be able to have
each block be independent -
 >>>> specifically the center block should be
able to have new data 
while the left
 >>>> menu block still build from cache.
 >>>>
 >>>> what is the best approach to this problem?
 >
 >>
 >> Do you need to be caching at all? If not, turn off
caching, and you
 >> should should be okay.


yes, i need caching to help deal with some database speed
issues. that is
the primary reason i use smarty. that, and the way it helps
me keep HTML out
of my PHP code.


 >> Alternatively...
 >>
 >> I would create a page template that has
placeholder variables for the
 >> various content blocks, and then templates for
each type of content
 >> block. Then, in your script, grab content, pass it
to the appropriate
 >> content block's template, and use the fetch()
method to grab the
 >> compiled template contents into a variable. Then
pass these variables to
 >> the main page template.


so i should use fetch() and pass the returned text to a
template variable
placed directly in the index template? if i get you right,
fetch() in my PHP
code can take the place of an include tag AND i get cache
control over it?
cool. i'll give it a try.

i assume that in this technique, i can no longer cache the
index template's
output, but should feed it out 'raw' each request. am i
correct in that
assumption? if i left the index template caching in place
smarty would just
use the final rendered output text from the display() call
and ignore the
fresh/uncached text fetched into template variables. should
i turn off
caching just before calling display() as you do in the code
below?


 >> Using this system, you could turn caching on and
off within your script
 >> based on the content type.
 >>
 >> As an example, if $content_blocks contains an
array of various content
 >> block objects, then:
 >>
 >>   foreach ($content_blocks as $block) {
 >>       // $block->cache indicates whether or not
to cache the block
 >>       if ($block->cache) {
 >>           $smarty->caching = 1;
 >>       } else {
 >>           $smarty->caching = 0;
 >>       }
 >>
 >>       // do some processing, assign some
variables...
 >>
 >>       // $block->template_file is the name of
the block's template
 >>       // file
 >>       $block_content =
$smarty->fetch($block->template_file);
 >>
 >>       // $block->template_var is the name of
the Smarty variable into
 >>       // which the blocks content will be placed
in the main page
 >>       // template
 >>      
$smarty_page->assign($block->template_var,
$block_content);
 >>   }
 >>
 >>   // Process the main page's content...
 >>
 >>   // Now display the main page
 >>   $smarty->display('page_template.tpl');


Oh this looks super! I like the idea of organizing my blocks
into objects!
Thanks for the tip.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I hope that that helps! It took a long time for me to fully
understand 
the caching system in Smarty - take your time.

Oh yeah, and don't forget $smarty->caching=2; to get
non-expiring caches 
which is the only way to properly control them. The default
is to expire 
in 1 hour!

<minorrant>I don't really understand why the default
is to expire 
caches, but that's the way it is. To me, expiring caches is
a 
specialized use of caching that should be the result of a
request, not 
the default. If you turn on caching, it should just turn on
and stay on 
- not turn off in an hour. But, then again, I'm not the one
who built 
smarty and it is easy enough to change it. But, it sure
stumped me for a 
few days until i read the fine print in the
manual.</minorrant>

dan

messju mohr had written:
> On Tue, May 02, 2006 at 05:17:11PM +0200, Jochem Maas
wrote:
> [...]
> 
>>hopefully you see that it's not your docs at fault
so much as I have got a
>>rather complex codebase and I'm finding it:
>>
>>a, hard to fully understand the compiling/caching
paradigm in smarty per se
>>
>>and
>>
>>b, harder still to take the examples in the docs and
extrapolate the 
>>concepts
>>into a design for flexible,generic production
quality caching mechanism 
>>which
>>i can actually implement (and would work: in terms
of the clients' 
>>requirements
>>for dynamic content - i.e. that 'truely' dynamic
stuff doesn't get cached, 
>>etc).
> 
> 
> my experience with smarty's caching is, that it's
> 
> a, works best if the whole system is built with caching
in mind, and
> built around smarty's caching mechanisms.
> 
> and that you can
> 
> b, use any caching with smarty that you like: just
leave smarty's
> caching off, and fetch the cached contents with your
cache logic and
> assign them to template variables which are displayed
templates.
>  
> 
>>regards,
>>Jochem.
> 
> 

-- 
Smarty General Mailing List (http://smarty.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub
.php