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Flask-Caching

.. module:: flask_caching
   :noindex:

Flask-Caching is an extension to Flask that adds caching support for various backends to any Flask application. By running on top of cachelib it supports all of werkzeug's original caching backends through a uniformed API. It is also possible to develop your own caching backend by subclassing :class:`flask_caching.backends.base.BaseCache` class.

Version support

Since 1.8, Flask-Caching supports only Python 3.5+.

Installation

Install the extension with the following command:

$ pip install Flask-Caching

Set Up

Cache is managed through a Cache instance:

from flask import Flask
from flask_caching import Cache

config = {
    "DEBUG": True,          # some Flask specific configs
    "CACHE_TYPE": "SimpleCache",  # Flask-Caching related configs
    "CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT": 300
}
app = Flask(__name__)
# tell Flask to use the above defined config
app.config.from_mapping(config)
cache = Cache(app)

You may also set up your Cache instance later at configuration time using init_app method:

cache = Cache(config={'CACHE_TYPE': 'SimpleCache'})

app = Flask(__name__)
cache.init_app(app)

You may also provide an alternate configuration dictionary, useful if there will be multiple Cache instances each with a different backend:

#: Method A: During instantiation of class
cache = Cache(config={'CACHE_TYPE': 'SimpleCache'})
#: Method B: During init_app call
cache.init_app(app, config={'CACHE_TYPE': 'SimpleCache'})

.. versionadded:: 0.7

Caching View Functions

To cache view functions you will use the :meth:`~Cache.cached` decorator. This decorator will use request.path by default for the cache_key:

@app.route("/")
@cache.cached(timeout=50)
def index():
    return render_template('index.html')

The cached decorator has another optional argument called unless. This argument accepts a callable that returns True or False. If unless returns True then it will bypass the caching mechanism entirely.

To dynamically determine the timeout within the view, you can return CachedResponse, a subclass of flask.Response:

@app.route("/")
@cache.cached()
def index():
    return CachedResponse(
        response=make_response(render_template('index.html')),
        timeout=50,
    )

Warning

When using cached on a view, take care to put it between Flask's @route decorator and your function definition. Example:

@app.route('/')
@cache.cached(timeout=50)
def index():
    return 'Cached for 50s'

If you reverse both decorator, what will be cached is the result of @route decorator, and not the result of your view function.

Caching Pluggable View Classes

Flask's pluggable view classes are also supported. To cache them, use the same :meth:`~Cache.cached` decorator on the dispatch_request method:

from flask.views import View

class MyView(View):
    @cache.cached(timeout=50)
    def dispatch_request(self):
        return 'Cached for 50s'

Caching Other Functions

Using the same @cached decorator you are able to cache the result of other non-view related functions. The only stipulation is that you replace the key_prefix, otherwise it will use the request.path cache_key. Keys control what should be fetched from the cache. If, for example, a key does not exist in the cache, a new key-value entry will be created in the cache. Otherwise the the value (i.e. the cached result) of the key will be returned:

@cache.cached(timeout=50, key_prefix='all_comments')
def get_all_comments():
    comments = do_serious_dbio()
    return [x.author for x in comments]

cached_comments = get_all_comments()

Make Custom Cache Key

Sometimes you want to define your cache key for each route. Using the same @cached decorator you are able to specify how this key is generated. This might be useful when the key for cache is should not be just the default key_prefix, but has to be derived from other parameters in a request. An example usecase would be for caching POST routes. Where the cache key should be derived from the data in that request, rather than just the route/view itself.

make_cache_key can be used to specify such a function. The function should return a string which should act like the key to the required value that is being cached:

def make_key():
   """A function which is called to derive the key for a computed value.
      The key in this case is the concat value of all the json request
      parameters. Other strategy could to use any hashing function.
   :returns: unique string for which the value should be cached.
   """
   user_data = request.get_json()
   return ",".join([f"{key}={value}" for key, value in user_data.items()])

@app.route("/hello", methods=["POST"])
@cache.cached(timeout=60, make_cache_key=make_key)
def some_func():
   ....

Memoization

See :meth:`~Cache.memoize`

In memoization, the functions arguments are also included into the cache_key.

Note

With functions that do not receive arguments, :meth:`~Cache.cached` and :meth:`~Cache.memoize` are effectively the same.

Memoize is also designed for methods, since it will take into account the identity. of the 'self' or 'cls' argument as part of the cache key.

The theory behind memoization is that if you have a function you need to call several times in one request, it would only be calculated the first time that function is called with those arguments. For example, an sqlalchemy object that determines if a user has a role. You might need to call this function many times during a single request. To keep from hitting the database every time this information is needed you might do something like the following:

class Person(db.Model):
    @cache.memoize(50)
    def has_membership(self, role_id):
        return Group.query.filter_by(user=self, role_id=role_id).count() >= 1

Warning

Using mutable objects (classes, etc) as part of the cache key can become tricky. It is suggested to not pass in an object instance into a memoized function. However, the memoize does perform a repr() on the passed in arguments so that if the object has a __repr__ function that returns a uniquely identifying string for that object, that will be used as part of the cache key.

For example, an sqlalchemy person object that returns the database id as part of the unique identifier:

class Person(db.Model):
    def __repr__(self):
        return "%s(%s)" % (self.__class__.__name__, self.id)

Deleting memoize cache

.. versionadded:: 0.2

You might need to delete the cache on a per-function basis. Using the above example, lets say you change the user's permissions and assign them to a role, but now you need to re-calculate if they have certain memberships or not. You can do this with the :meth:`~Cache.delete_memoized` function:

cache.delete_memoized(user_has_membership)

Note

If only the function name is given as parameter, all the memoized versions of it will be invalidated. However, you can delete specific cache by providing the same parameter values as when caching. In following example only the user-role cache is deleted:

user_has_membership('demo', 'admin')
user_has_membership('demo', 'user')

cache.delete_memoized(user_has_membership, 'demo', 'user')

Warning

If a classmethod is memoized, you must provide the class as the first *args argument.

class Foobar(object):
    @classmethod
    @cache.memoize(5)
    def big_foo(cls, a, b):
        return a + b + random.randrange(0, 100000)

cache.delete_memoized(Foobar.big_foo, Foobar, 5, 2)

Caching Jinja2 Snippets

Usage:

{% cache [timeout [,[key1, [key2, ...]]]] %}
...
{% endcache %}

By default, the value of "path to template file" + "block start line" is used as the cache key. Also, the key name can be set manually. Keys are concatenated together into a single string, that can be used to avoid the same block evaluating in different templates.

Set the timeout to None for no timeout, but with custom keys:

{% cache None, "key" %}
...
{% endcache %}

Set timeout to del to delete cached value:

{% cache 'del', key1 %}
...
{% endcache %}

If keys are provided, you may easily generate the template fragment key and delete it from outside of the template context:

from flask_caching import make_template_fragment_key
key = make_template_fragment_key("key1", vary_on=["key2", "key3"])
cache.delete(key)

Considering we have render_form_field and render_submit macros:

{% cache 60*5 %}
<div>
    <form>
    {% render_form_field(form.username) %}
    {% render_submit() %}
    </form>
</div>
{% endcache %}

Clearing Cache

See :meth:`~Cache.clear`.

Here's an example script to empty your application's cache:

from flask_caching import Cache

from yourapp import app, your_cache_config

cache = Cache()


def main():
    cache.init_app(app, config=your_cache_config)

    with app.app_context():
        cache.clear()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Warning

Some backend implementations do not support completely clearing the cache. Also, if you're not using a key prefix, some implementations (e.g. Redis) will flush the whole database. Make sure you're not storing any other data in your caching database.

Explicitly Caching Data

Data can be cached explicitly by using the proxy methods like :meth:`Cache.set`, and :meth:`Cache.get` directly. There are many other proxy methods available via the :class:`Cache` class.

For example:

@app.route("/html")
@app.route("/html/<foo>")
def html(foo=None):
    if foo is not None:
        cache.set("foo", foo)
    bar = cache.get("foo")
    return render_template_string(
        "<html><body>foo cache: {{bar}}</body></html>", bar=bar
    )

Configuring Flask-Caching

The following configuration values exist for Flask-Caching:

.. tabularcolumns:: |p{6.5cm}|p{8.5cm}|
CACHE_TYPE

Specifies which type of caching object to use. This is an import string that will be imported and instantiated. It is assumed that the import object is a function that will return a cache object that adheres to the cache API.

For flask_caching.backends.cache objects, you do not need to specify the entire import string, just one of the following names.

Built-in cache types:

  • NullCache (default; old name is null)
  • SimpleCache (old name is simple)
  • FileSystemCache (old name is filesystem)
  • RedisCache (redis required; old name is redis)
  • RedisSentinelCache (redis required; old name is redissentinel)
  • RedisClusterCache (redis required; old name is rediscluster)
  • UWSGICache (uwsgi required; old name is uwsgi)
  • MemcachedCache (pylibmc or memcache required; old name is memcached or gaememcached)
  • SASLMemcachedCache (pylibmc required; old name is saslmemcached)
  • SpreadSASLMemcachedCache (pylibmc required; old name is spreadsaslmemcached)
CACHE_NO_NULL_WARNING Silence the warning message when using cache type of 'null'.
CACHE_ARGS Optional list to unpack and pass during the cache class instantiation.
CACHE_OPTIONS Optional dictionary to pass during the cache class instantiation.
CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT The timeout that is used if no other timeout is specified. Unit of time is seconds. Defaults to 300.
CACHE_IGNORE_ERRORS If set to any errors that occurred during the deletion process will be ignored. However, if it is set to False it will stop on the first error. This option is only relevant for the backends FileSystemCache and SimpleCache. Defaults to False.
CACHE_THRESHOLD The maximum number of items the cache will store before it starts deleting some. Used only for SimpleCache and FileSystemCache. Defaults to 500.
CACHE_KEY_PREFIX A prefix that is added before all keys. This makes it possible to use the same memcached server for different apps. Used only for RedisCache and MemcachedCache. Defaults to flask_cache_.
CACHE_SOURCE_CHECK The default condition applied to function decorators which controls if the source code of the function should be included when forming the hash which is used as the cache key. This ensures that if the source code changes, the cached value will not be returned when the new function is called even if the arguments are the same. Defaults to False.
CACHE_UWSGI_NAME The name of the uwsgi caching instance to connect to, for example: mycache@localhost:3031, defaults to an empty string, which means uWSGI will cache in the local instance. If the cache is in the same instance as the werkzeug app, you only have to provide the name of the cache.
CACHE_MEMCACHED_SERVERS A list or a tuple of server addresses. Used only for MemcachedCache
CACHE_MEMCACHED_USERNAME Username for SASL authentication with memcached. Used only for SASLMemcachedCache
CACHE_MEMCACHED_PASSWORD Password for SASL authentication with memcached. Used only for SASLMemcachedCache
CACHE_REDIS_HOST A Redis server host. Used only for RedisCache.
CACHE_REDIS_PORT A Redis server port. Default is 6379. Used only for RedisCache.
CACHE_REDIS_PASSWORD A Redis password for server. Used only for RedisCache and RedisSentinelCache.
CACHE_REDIS_DB A Redis db (zero-based number index). Default is 0. Used only for RedisCache and RedisSentinelCache.
CACHE_REDIS_SENTINELS A list or a tuple of Redis sentinel addresses. Used only for RedisSentinelCache.
CACHE_REDIS_SENTINEL_MASTER The name of the master server in a sentinel configuration. Used only for RedisSentinelCache.
CACHE_REDIS_CLUSTER A string of comma-separated Redis cluster node addresses. e.g. host1:port1,host2:port2,host3:port3 . Used only for RedisClusterCache.
CACHE_DIR Directory to store cache. Used only for FileSystemCache.
CACHE_REDIS_URL URL to connect to Redis server. Example redis://user:password@localhost:6379/2. Supports protocols redis://, rediss:// (redis over TLS) and unix://. See more info about URL support [here](http://redis-py.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html#redis.ConnectionPool.from_url). Used only for RedisCache.

Built-in Cache Backends

NullCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to NullCache to use this type. The old name, null is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Cache that doesn't cache

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

SimpleCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to SimpleCache to use this type. The old name, simple is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Uses a local python dictionary for caching. This is not really thread safe.

Relevant configuration values

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
  • CACHE_IGNORE_ERRORS
  • CACHE_THRESHOLD
.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

FileSystemCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to FileSystemCache to use this type. The old name, filesystem is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Uses the filesystem to store cached values

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
  • CACHE_IGNORE_ERRORS
  • CACHE_DIR
  • CACHE_THRESHOLD
  • CACHE_OPTIONS

There is a single valid entry in CACHE_OPTIONS: mode, which should be a 3 digit linux-style permissions octal mode.

.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

RedisCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to RedisCache to use this type. The old name, redis is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
  • CACHE_KEY_PREFIX
  • CACHE_OPTIONS
  • CACHE_REDIS_HOST
  • CACHE_REDIS_PORT
  • CACHE_REDIS_PASSWORD
  • CACHE_REDIS_DB
  • CACHE_REDIS_URL

Entries in CACHE_OPTIONS are passed to the redis client as **kwargs

.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

RedisSentinelCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to RedisSentinel to use this type. The old name, redissentinel is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

  • CACHE_KEY_PREFIX
  • CACHE_REDIS_SENTINELS
  • CACHE_REDIS_SENTINEL_MASTER
  • CACHE_REDIS_PASSWORD
  • CACHE_REDIS_DB

Entries in CACHE_OPTIONS are passed to the redis client as **kwargs

.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

RedisClusterCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to RedisClusterCache to use this type. The old name, rediscluster is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

  • CACHE_KEY_PREFIX
  • CACHE_REDIS_CLUSTER
  • CACHE_REDIS_PASSWORD

Entries in CACHE_OPTIONS are passed to the redis client as **kwargs

.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

MemcachedCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to MemcachedCache to use this type. The old names, memcached and gaememcached are deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Uses a memcached server as a backend. Supports either pylibmc or memcache or google app engine memcache library.

Relevant configuration values

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
  • CACHE_KEY_PREFIX
  • CACHE_MEMCACHED_SERVERS

Note

Flask-Caching does not pass additional configuration options to memcached backends. To add additional configuration to these caches, directly set the configuration options on the object after instantiation:

from flask_caching import Cache
cache = Cache()

# Can't configure the client yet...
cache.init_app(flask_app, {"CACHE_TYPE": "memcached"})

# Break convention and set options on the _client object
# directly. For pylibmc behaviors:
cache.cache._client.behaviors({"tcp_nodelay": True})

Alternatively, see Custom Cache Backends.

.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

SASLMemcachedCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to SASLMemcachedCache to use this type. The old name, saslmemcached is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Uses a memcached server as a backend. Intended to be used with a SASL enabled connection to the memcached server. pylibmc is required and SASL must be supported by libmemcached.

Relevant configuration values

  • CACHE_DEFAULT_TIMEOUT
  • CACHE_KEY_PREFIX
  • CACHE_OPTIONS
  • CACHE_MEMCACHED_SERVERS
  • CACHE_MEMCACHED_USERNAME
  • CACHE_MEMCACHED_PASSWORD

Note

Unlike MemcachedCache, SASLMemcachedCache can be configured with CACHE_OPTIONS.

.. versionadded:: 0.10


.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

SpreadSASLMemcachedCache

Set CACHE_TYPE to SpreadSASLMemcachedCache to use this type. The old name, spreadsaslmemcached is deprecated and will be removed in Flask-Caching 2.0.

Same as SASLMemcachedCache however, it has the ability to spread value across multiple keys if it is bigger than the memcached threshold which by default is 1M. Uses pickle.

.. versionadded:: 0.11


.. versionchanged::  1.1.0
    Renamed ``spreadsaslmemcachedcache`` to ``spreadsaslmemcached`` for
    the sake of consistency.


.. versionchanged::  1.9.1
   Deprecated the old name in favour of just using the class name.

UWSGICache

Warning

UWSGICache is not maintained nor tested. Use at your own risk.

Set CACHE_TYPE to flask_caching.contrib.uwsgicache.UWSGICache to use this type. You also have to set CACHE_UWSGI_NAME to the cache name you set in your uWSGI configuration.

Custom Cache Backends

You are able to easily add your own custom cache backends by exposing a function that can instantiate and return a cache object. CACHE_TYPE will be the import string to your custom cache type. If not a subclass of :class:`flask_caching.backends.cache.BaseCache`, Flask-Caching will call it with three arguments:

  • app, the Flask application object the cache is being initialized for
  • args, the value of the CACHE_ARGS configuration option
  • kwargs, the value of the CACHE_OPTIONS configuration option

Note

args and kwargs are not expanded when instantiating the cache object, i.e. they are not passed in as *args and **kwargs, but they are the exact value of the CACHE_ARGS and CACHE_OPTIONS configuration options (CACHE_ARGS, however, is converted to a list).

Your custom cache should, however, subclass the :class:`flask_caching.backends.cache.BaseCache` class so it provides all the necessary methods to be usable.

.. versionchanged:: 1.9.1 If your custom cache type *is* a subclass of
   :class:`flask_caching.backends.cache.BaseCache`, Flask-Caching will, instead
   of directly instantiating the class, call its ``factory`` class method with
   the same args as listed above.  Unless overridden, ``BaseCache.factory``
   simply instantiates the object without passing any arguments to it.
   Built-in cache classes have overridden this to mimic the old, function based
   cache isntantiation, so if you subclassed something that is not
   :class:`flask_caching.backends.cache.BaseCache`, you may want to consult the
   source code to see if your class is still compatible.

An example implementation:

#: the_app/custom.py
class RedisCache(BaseCache):
    def __init__(self, servers, default_timeout=500):
        pass

    @classmethod
    def factory(cls, app, args, kwargs):
        args.append(app.config['REDIS_SERVERS'])

        return cls(*args, **kwargs)

With this example, your CACHE_TYPE might be the_app.custom.RedisCache

CACHE_TYPE doesn’t have to directly point to a cache class, though. An example PylibMC cache implementation to change binary setting and provide username/password if SASL is enabled on the library:

#: the_app/custom.py
def pylibmccache(app, config, args, kwargs):
    return pylibmc.Client(servers=config['CACHE_MEMCACHED_SERVERS'],
                          username=config['CACHE_MEMCACHED_USERNAME'],
                          password=config['CACHE_MEMCACHED_PASSWORD'],
                          binary=True)

With this example, your CACHE_TYPE might be the_app.custom.pylibmccache

API

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   api

Additional Information

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 2

   changelog
   license