Memcache Examples

This page provides Python code examples for using memcache. Memcache is a high-performance, distributed memory object caching system that provides fast access to cached data. To learn more about memcache, read the Memcache Overview.

The memcache Pattern

Memcache is typically used with the following pattern:

  • The application receives a query from the user or the application.
  • The application checks whether the data needed to satisfy that query is in memcache.
    • If the data is in memcache, the application uses that data.
    • If the data is not in memcache, the application queries the Datastore and stores the results in memcache for future requests.

The pseudocode below represents a typical memcache request:

def get_data():
    data = memcache.get('key')
    if data is not None:
        return data
    else:
        data = query_for_data()
        memcache.add('key', data, 60)
    return data

ndb internally uses memcache to speed up queries. However, if you wish, you can also explicitly add memcache calls to gain more control about the speed-ups.

Caching data

The following example demonstrates several ways to set values in memcache using the Python API.

# Add a value if it doesn't exist in the cache
# with a cache expiration of 1 hour.
memcache.add(key="weather_USA_98105", value="raining", time=3600)

# Set several values, overwriting any existing values for these keys.
memcache.set_multi(
    {"USA_98115": "cloudy", "USA_94105": "foggy", "USA_94043": "sunny"},
    key_prefix="weather_",
    time=3600
)

# Atomically increment an integer value.
memcache.set(key="counter", value=0)
memcache.incr("counter")
memcache.incr("counter")
memcache.incr("counter")

To learn more about the add(), set_multi(), and set() methods, see the memcache Python API documentation.

Modifying guestbook.py to use memcache

The Guestbook application queries the Datastore on every request (via ndb, so it already gains some of the memcache speed-ups). You can modify the Guestbook application to use memcache explicitly before resorting to querying the Datastore.

First we'll import the memcache module and create the method that checks memcache before running a query.

def get_greetings(self, guestbook_name):
    """
    get_greetings()
    Checks the cache to see if there are cached greetings.
    If not, call render_greetings and set the cache

    Args:
      guestbook_name: Guestbook entity group key (string).

    Returns:
      A string of HTML containing greetings.
    """
    greetings = memcache.get('{}:greetings'.format(guestbook_name))
    if greetings is None:
        greetings = self.render_greetings(guestbook_name)
        try:
            added = memcache.add(
                '{}:greetings'.format(guestbook_name), greetings, 10)
            if not added:
                logging.error('Memcache set failed.')
        except ValueError:
            logging.error('Memcache set failed - data larger than 1MB')
    return greetings

Next we'll separate out the querying and creation of the HTML for the page. When we don't hit the cache, we'll call this method to query the Datastore and build the HTML string that we'll store in memcache.

def render_greetings(self, guestbook_name):
    """
    render_greetings()
    Queries the database for greetings, iterate through the
    results and create the HTML.

    Args:
      guestbook_name: Guestbook entity group key (string).

    Returns:
      A string of HTML containing greetings
    """
    greetings = ndb.gql('SELECT * '
                        'FROM Greeting '
                        'WHERE ANCESTOR IS :1 '
                        'ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT 10',
                        guestbook_key(guestbook_name))
    output = cStringIO.StringIO()
    for greeting in greetings:
        if greeting.author:
            output.write('<b>{}</b> wrote:'.format(greeting.author))
        else:
            output.write('An anonymous person wrote:')
        output.write('<blockquote>{}</blockquote>'.format(
            cgi.escape(greeting.content)))
    return output.getvalue()

Finally we will update the MainPage handler to call the get_greetings() method and display some stats about the number of times the cache was hit or missed.


import cgi
import cStringIO
import logging
import urllib

from google.appengine.api import memcache
from google.appengine.api import users
from google.appengine.ext import ndb

import webapp2


class Greeting(ndb.Model):
    """Models an individual Guestbook entry with author, content, and date."""
    author = ndb.StringProperty()
    content = ndb.StringProperty()
    date = ndb.DateTimeProperty(auto_now_add=True)


def guestbook_key(guestbook_name=None):
    """Constructs a Datastore key for a Guestbook entity with guestbook_name"""
    return ndb.Key('Guestbook', guestbook_name or 'default_guestbook')


class MainPage(webapp2.RequestHandler):
    def get(self):
        self.response.out.write('<html><body>')
        guestbook_name = self.request.get('guestbook_name')

        greetings = self.get_greetings(guestbook_name)
        stats = memcache.get_stats()

        self.response.write('<b>Cache Hits:{}</b><br>'.format(stats['hits']))
        self.response.write('<b>Cache Misses:{}</b><br><br>'.format(
                            stats['misses']))
        self.response.write(greetings)

        self.response.write("""
          <form action="/sign?{}" method="post">
            <div><textarea name="content" rows="3" cols="60"></textarea></div>
            <div><input type="submit" value="Sign Guestbook"></div>
          </form>
          <hr>
          <form>Guestbook name: <input value="{}" name="guestbook_name">
          <input type="submit" value="switch"></form>
        </body>
      </html>""".format(urllib.urlencode({'guestbook_name': guestbook_name}),
                        cgi.escape(guestbook_name)))

    def get_greetings(self, guestbook_name):
        """
        get_greetings()
        Checks the cache to see if there are cached greetings.
        If not, call render_greetings and set the cache

        Args:
          guestbook_name: Guestbook entity group key (string).

        Returns:
          A string of HTML containing greetings.
        """
        greetings = memcache.get('{}:greetings'.format(guestbook_name))
        if greetings is None:
            greetings = self.render_greetings(guestbook_name)
            try:
                added = memcache.add(
                    '{}:greetings'.format(guestbook_name), greetings, 10)
                if not added:
                    logging.error('Memcache set failed.')
            except ValueError:
                logging.error('Memcache set failed - data larger than 1MB')
        return greetings

    def render_greetings(self, guestbook_name):
        """
        render_greetings()
        Queries the database for greetings, iterate through the
        results and create the HTML.

        Args:
          guestbook_name: Guestbook entity group key (string).

        Returns:
          A string of HTML containing greetings
        """
        greetings = ndb.gql('SELECT * '
                            'FROM Greeting '
                            'WHERE ANCESTOR IS :1 '
                            'ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT 10',
                            guestbook_key(guestbook_name))
        output = cStringIO.StringIO()
        for greeting in greetings:
            if greeting.author:
                output.write('<b>{}</b> wrote:'.format(greeting.author))
            else:
                output.write('An anonymous person wrote:')
            output.write('<blockquote>{}</blockquote>'.format(
                cgi.escape(greeting.content)))
        return output.getvalue()


class Guestbook(webapp2.RequestHandler):
    def post(self):
        # We set the same parent key on the 'Greeting' to ensure each greeting
        # is in the same entity group. Queries across the single entity group
        # are strongly consistent. However, the write rate to a single entity
        # group is limited to ~1/second.
        guestbook_name = self.request.get('guestbook_name')
        greeting = Greeting(parent=guestbook_key(guestbook_name))

        if users.get_current_user():
            greeting.author = users.get_current_user().nickname()

        greeting.content = self.request.get('content')
        greeting.put()
        memcache.delete('{}:greetings'.format(guestbook_name))
        self.redirect('/?' +
                      urllib.urlencode({'guestbook_name': guestbook_name}))


app = webapp2.WSGIApplication([('/', MainPage),
                               ('/sign', Guestbook)],
                              debug=True)