A simple and intuitive in-memory cache with TTL support for your JavaScript applications.

⛩️ About

Discover an elegant and efficient in-memory cache module for Node.js. This package incorporates time-to-live (ttl) functionality, asynchronously evicting expired keys from the cache.

• Support for up to 1 million keys that are stored in a single object.

• Leverages worker_threads, to optimize cache expiration checks, freeing the main thread for other critical tasks.

📜 Installation

• You can install nodecache.js via npm:

  npm install nodecache.js

📒 Getting Started

To start using nodecache.js with your applications, import and create an instane as follows:

const NodeCache = require("nodecache.js")

let myCache = new NodeCache()

Working with custom params

• Values in the cache are stored as string type by default. To prevent forced string types:

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
        forceString: false // this will disable default type coercion.
    }) 

• By default, there is no limit set on the keys for the cache. To limit the max number of keys for your cache instance:

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
        maxKeys: 5000 // Default is -1 to disable the limit.
    }) 

• Set a default TTL value for all set() calls with standard ttl configuration value.

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
      stdTTL: 5 * 60 * 1000 // every key saved for ttl: 5mins 
    })

• Cache instance by default only logs errors. To Configure params for cache logs:
  • Cache log params: mode, type and path

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
        mode: "std" 
        // std debug mode for std output stream. Defaults to none.
    })

  • Allowed mode values include: none, std, exp

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
        type: "dev env logs" 
        // sets a custom debugger msg type. Defaults to info.
    })

    Console output:

    [🍁 Custom Err] 6/2/23, 4:51 PM: nodeCache.js initialized

  • To configure cache log output stream to a specific file path: wip

  • let myCache = new NodeCache({
        path: "file://mycache.log" 
        // sets log output stream, default is set to none.
    })

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💽 APIs

Access a key: get()

• Accepts a valid key of type: number or string.
• If not found or the key has expired: Returns undefined.
• If found: returns the value of type: number, string, or object.

•   let value = myCache.get("key")

Access multiple keys: getM()

• Accepts an Array of valid keys. Array<key>
• Returns an Array of objects corresponding to each key. Array<{value, ttl?}>

•  let values = myCache.getM(["key1", "key2", ...])
   for(let value of values) {
      //access all the value objects. {value, ttl}
   }

Store a key: set()

• Accepts valid key, value and optional ttl.
• Allowed value types: number, string, or object.
• Allowed ttl type: number in milliseconds.
• Returns a boolean. True is set was success, else false.

• let isSet = myCache.set("key", "value", 1200) // key->value set for 1.2s

Store multiple keys: setM()

• Accepts an Array of valid set() inputs. Array<{key, value, ttl?}>
• Returns an Array of boolean flags indicating set status. Array<boolean>

• let isSetResponses = myCache.setM([{"k1", "v1", 2500}, {"k2", 15}...])

Retrieve TTL for a key: getTTL()

• Accepts a valid key: number or string.
• Returns undefined to key is missing, else the ttl value: number.

• let ttl = myCache.getTTL("key1")

Update TTL for a key: setTTL()

• Accepts a valid key and ttl in ms: number.
• Returns boolean response. true if set was a success else false.

• let success = myCache.setTTL("key1", 12000) // key1 for a ttl: 12sec

Refresh cache instance: refresh()

• Accepts void. Returns a Promise.
• Refresh runs on the main thread, looping over all the keys in the cache, and evicting the expired once.
• This is a blocking code. Recommendated when consistency in the cache is a high priority.

•   const importantTask = async () => {
      try {
        await cache.refresh();
        // code ...
      } catch(err) { ... }
    }

Close the cache instance: close()

• Accepts void and returns void.
• It is mandatory to invoke close() method when cache is no longer needed.

•   let myCache = new NodeCache({...options})
    /** 
     * work with cache instance..
    */
  
    myCache.close(); // close worker thread, & free up memory.

Retrieve Stats on the cache: global()

• Returns an object with cacheHit, cacheMiss and keyCount.

•   let stats = myCache.global()
    // stats: { cacheHit, cacheMiss, keyCount }

Flush Cache stats: flush()

• Returns void. To clear the current global stats for the cache instance.

•  myCache.flush()
   let stats = myCache.global() //stats: { 0, 0, 0}

⚗️ To Do (wip)

• Node.js Events: on(event_type): Support for initialize, close, get, set, delete, flush, and refresh.
• Optimizations on existing ttl implementation and the cache eviction policy.

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🔖 Contributing

If you're interested to contribute or brain storm ideas, Contributions are most welcomed!
Reach out to: akash.c1500@gmail.com

📜 License

Copyright (c) Akash Chouhan. All rights reserved. Released under the MIT License.