Re: [OpenBD] ini file caching -- Is it necessary?

[Alan Holden]

My MO has always been to create a little cffunction that loads up all the ini vars (things like datasource name, file paths, admin emails, external servers, etc) - and put them into the application scope. I hit the little function onApplicationStart - and I might have some other event or trigger to fire off that little function as needed. Because it's often the app's administrator who can change the contents of the ini file - he or she just knows to trigger the reload if he/she changes it (often by placing a secret word in a url query string, like "domain.com/?iniReload=1" - that's picked up with a code snippet you can put in the onRequestStart function. I will often place these ini files in the cfml engine's root, using the Application.name as part of the file spec and the platform's 'server' scope to find it. This feature is generally provided as a mechanism to store variables - that are exclusive to that machine - outside the public web path and also your source code control (like SVN); so that your application code base remains pure (does not become riddled with the bunch of "if I'm a dev machine then I'll do this" files or conditions). You could also get all fancy pants, and actually "sense" when the file has changed automatically, but now you're starting to stretch the whole purpose of what "ini" even stands for. If they change all the time, then they're not really "initialize" values at all, are they? ;-] If they change like ... per-user, then put 'em in a database, session scope or encrypted cookie, load 'em up when the user authenticates. Al On 3/31/2012 11:26 AM, Aaron J. White wrote: Hey Guys, I recently choose .ini files to store user defined application variables in. I will be grabbing the variables I need throughout my application with the getprofilestring and getprofilessection functions. ***Should I be caching the values I store in the ini files somehow? In my head I assume getprofilestring could be an expensive operation since it needs to read the value from the file stored on the hard drive. ***If I wanted to cache the values in the application scope is there a good way to detect if the .ini file has been modified and only then reload the cache? This may not be something I have to worry about, but I just want to make sure I am using best practices. I also don't expect my user defined application variables to change very often after the initial configuration. Below is an example of how I will be using the settings defined in the ini in my application's logic. Please let me know what you think. <cffunction name="index" output="false"> <cfset var l = { publicPage: getprofilestring(application.basepath & "/config/ settings.ini.cfm", "mainpage", "publicPage"), forwardUrl:getprofilestring(application.basepath & "/config/ settings.ini.cfm", "mainpage", "forwardUrl") } /> <cfif structKeyExists(rc, "curl") AND len(rc.curl)> <!--- push to url---> <cfset application.theFactory.getService("url").pushLongUrl(rc.curl) /> <cfelseif NOT l.publicPage> <!--- forward to userdefined url---> <cfif isValid('url', l.forwardUrl)> <cfset location(l.forwardUrl, 'no') /> </cfif> <cfabort /> <cfelse> <!--- get main page ---> <cfset rc.title = "Main Page" /> </cfif> </cffunction> -- online documentation: http://openbd.org/manual/ google+ hints/tips: https://plus.google.com/115990347459711259462 http://groups.google.com/group/openbd?hl=en