Thread-safe caching object with file and HTTP implementations

From: http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/302997

Title: Thread-safe caching object with file and HTTP implementations Submitter: Nicolas Lehuen (other recipes) Last Updated: 2006/02/08 Version no: 1.8 Category: Algorithms	--Rate--5 - Excellent4 - Very good3 - Good2 - Needs work1 - Poor  Not Rated yet
Description: Implementation of an abstract, thread-safe cache with minimal locking. Four concrete implementations : a validating file cache, a validating HTTP cache, an experimental Python module cache and a function cache. Plus, an abstract cache with weak references to its values. Source: Text Source # -*- coding: iso-8859-1 -*- from os import stat from time import time, mktime from rfc822 import parsedate from calendar import timegm import urllib2 import re import weakref import new try: from threading import Lock except ImportError: from dummy_threading import Lock NOT_INITIALIZED = object() class Entry(object): """ A cache entry, mostly an internal object. """ def __init__(self, key): object.__init__(self) self._key=key self._value=NOT_INITIALIZED self._lock=Lock() class Cache(object): """ An abstract, multi-threaded cache object. """ def __init__(self, max_size=0): """ Builds a cache with a limit of max_size entries. If this limit is exceeded, the Least Recently Used entry is discarded. if max_size==0, the cache is unbounded (no LRU rule is applied). """ object.__init__(self) self._maxsize=max_size self._dict={} self._lock=Lock() # Header of the access list if self._maxsize: self._head=Entry(None) self._head._previous=self._head self._head._next=self._head def __setitem__(self, name, value): """ Populates the cache with a given name and value. """ key = self.key(name) entry = self._get_entry(key) entry._lock.acquire() try: self._pack(entry,value) self.commit() finally: entry._lock.release() def __getitem__(self, name): """ Gets a value from the cache, builds it if required. """ return self._checkitem(name)[2] def __delitem__(self, name): self._lock.acquire() try: key = self.key(name) del self._dict[key] finally: self._lock.release() def _get_entry(self,key): self._lock.acquire() try: entry = self._dict.get(key) if not entry: entry = Entry(key) self._dict[key]=entry if self._maxsize: entry._next = entry._previous = None self._access(entry) self._checklru() elif self._maxsize: self._access(entry) return entry finally: self._lock.release() def _checkitem(self, name): """ Gets a value from the cache, builds it if required. Returns a tuple is_new, key, value, entry. If is_new is True, the result had to be rebuilt. """ key = self.key(name) entry = self._get_entry(key) entry._lock.acquire() try: value = self._unpack(entry) is_new = False if value is NOT_INITIALIZED: opened = self.check(key, name, entry) value = self.build(key, name, opened, entry) is_new = True self._pack(entry, value) self.commit() else: opened = self.check(key, name, entry) if opened is not None: value = self.build(key, name, opened, entry) is_new = True self._pack(entry, value) self.commit() return is_new, key, value, entry finally: entry._lock.release() def mru(self): """ Returns the Most Recently Used key """ if self._maxsize: self._lock.acquire() try: return self._head._previous._key finally: self._lock.release() else: return None def lru(self): """ Returns the Least Recently Used key """ if self._maxsize: self._lock.acquire() try: return self._head._next._key finally: self._lock.release() else: return None def key(self, name): """ Override this method to extract a key from the name passed to the [] operator """ return name def commit(self): """ Override this method if you want to do something each time the underlying dictionary is modified (e.g. make it persistent). """ pass def clear(self): """ Clears the cache """ self._lock.acquire() try: self._dict.clear() if self._maxsize: self._head._next=self._head self._head._previous=self._head finally: self._lock.release() def check(self, key, name, entry): """ Override this method to check whether the entry with the given name is stale. Return None if it is fresh or an opened resource if it is stale. The object returned will be passed to the 'build' method as the 'opened' parameter. Use the 'entry' parameter to store meta-data if required. Don't worry about multiple threads accessing the same name, as this method is properly isolated. """ return None def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): """ Build the cached value with the given name from the given opened resource. Use entry to obtain or store meta-data if needed. Don't worry about multiple threads accessing the same name, as this method is properly isolated. """ raise NotImplementedError() def _access(self, entry): " Internal use only, must be invoked within a cache lock. Updates the access list. """ if entry._next is not self._head: if entry._previous is not None: # remove the entry from the access list entry._previous._next=entry._next entry._next._previous=entry._previous # insert the entry at the end of the access list entry._previous=self._head._previous entry._previous._next=entry entry._next=self._head entry._next._previous=entry if self._head._next is self._head: self._head._next=entry def _checklru(self): " Internal use only, must be invoked within a cache lock. Removes the LRU entry if needed. """ if len(self._dict)>self._maxsize: lru=self._head._next lru._previous._next=lru._next lru._next._previous=lru._previous del self._dict[lru._key] def _pack(self, entry, value): """ Store the value in the entry. """ entry._value=value def _unpack(self, entry): """ Recover the value from the entry, returns NOT_INITIALIZED if it is not OK. """ return entry._value class WeakCache(Cache): """ This cache holds weak references to the values it stores. Whenever a value is not longer normally referenced, it is removed from the cache. Useful for sharing the result of long computations but letting them go as soon as they are not needed by anybody. """ def _pack(self, entry, value): entry._value=weakref.ref(value, lambda ref: self.__delitem__(entry._key)) def _unpack(self, entry): if entry._value is NOT_INITIALIZED: return NOT_INITIALIZED value = entry._value() if value is None: return NOT_INITIALIZED else: return value class FileCache(Cache): """ A file cache. Returns the content of the files as a string, given their filename. Whenever the files are modified (according to their modification time) the cache is updated. Override the build method to obtain more interesting behaviour. """ def __init__(self, max_size=0, mode='rb'): Cache.__init__(self, max_size) self.mode=mode def check(self, key, name, entry): timestamp = stat(key).st_mtime if entry._value is NOT_INITIALIZED: entry._timestamp = timestamp return file(key, self.mode) else: if entry._timestamp != timestamp: entry._timestamp = timestamp return file(key, self.mode) else: return None def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): """ Return the content of the file as a string. Override this for better behaviour. """ try: return opened.read() finally: opened.close() def parseRFC822Time(t): return mktime(parsedate(t)) re_max_age=re.compile('max-age/s*=/s*(/d+)', re.I) class HTTPEntity(object): def __init__(self, entity, metadata): self.entity=entity self.metadata=metadata def __repr__(self): return 'HTTPEntity(%s, %s)'%(repr(self.entity), self.metadata) def __str__(self): return self.entity class HTTPCache(Cache): """ An HTTP cache. Returns the entity found at the given URL. Uses Expires, ETag and Last-Modified headers to minimize bandwidth usage. Partial Cache-Control support (only max-age is supported). """ def check(self, key, name, entry): request = urllib2.Request(key) try: if time()<entry._expires: return None except AttributeError: pass try: header, value = entry._validator request.headers[header]=value except AttributeError: pass opened = None try: opened = urllib2.urlopen(request) headers = opened.info() # expiration handling expiration = False try: match = re_max_age.match(headers['cache-control']) if match: entry._expires=time()+int(match.group(1)) expiration = True except (KeyError, ValueError): pass if not expiration: try: date = parseRFC822Time(headers['date']) expires = parseRFC822Time(headers['expires']) entry._expires = time()+(expires-date) expiration = True except KeyError: pass # validator handling validation = False try: entry._validator='If-None-Match', headers['etag'] validation = True except KeyError: pass if not validation: try: entry._validator='If-Modified-Since', headers['last-modified'] except KeyError: pass return opened except urllib2.HTTPError, error: if opened: opened.close() if error.code==304: return None else: raise error def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): try: return HTTPEntity(opened.read(), dict(opened.info())) finally: opened.close() re_not_word = re.compile(r'/W+') class ModuleCache(FileCache): """ A module cache. Give it a file name, it returns a module which results from the execution of the Python script it contains. This module is not inserted into sys.modules. """ def __init__(self, max_size=0): FileCache.__init__(self, max_size, 'r') def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): try: module = new.module(re_not_word.sub('_',key)) module.__file__ = key exec opened in module.__dict__ return module finally: opened.close() class HttpModuleCache(HTTPCache): """ A module cache. Give it an HTTP URL, it returns a module which results from the execution of the Python script it contains. This module is not inserted into sys.modules. """ def __init__(self, max_size=0): HTTPCache.__init__(self, max_size) def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): try: module = new.module(re_not_word.sub('_',key)) module.__file__ = key text = opened.read().replace('/r/n', '/n') code = compile(text, name, 'exec') exec code in module.__dict__ return module finally: opened.close() class FunctionCache(Cache): def __init__(self, function, max_size=0): Cache.__init__(self, max_size) self.function=function def __call__(self, *args, **kw): if kw: # a dict is not hashable so we build a tuple of (key, value) pairs kw = tuple(kw.iteritems()) return self[args, kw] else: return self[args, ()] def build(self, key, name, opened, entry): args, kw = key return self.function(*args, **dict(kw)) Discussion: Two years ago I was a definite Java fan (writing in this language since the 1.0 beta version of 1995). Now I'm in love with Python. The trouble is that I left behind quite a few useful classes I wrote (thread-safe caches, pools, etc.), so I had to reimplement them in Python. A cache is a pretty simple dictionary-like object : you provide it an index or a name, it gives you back an object. For example, for an HTTP cache, the index is an URL, the object is the data you can fetch from the URL. The trick is that the corresponding object can be quite expensive (in CPU, bandwitdh, time or memory) to build, so you have to balance between building the object every time you need it, or pre-building all the objects you could require, knowing that the target object can change in time (think of how an URL can point to different data over time). A cache is precisely a way to find a balance between these two extremities. This recipes provides you with an abstract Cache class, from which you can inherit, overriding the check() and build() methods, and four specialisations. FileCache and HTTPCache are quite what their name describe. ModuleCache is an experimental specialisation of FileCache, which can come handy when playing with dynamic code, since it allow you to load any arbitrary file as a python module, and dynamically reload it each time the file is modified. FunctionCache is the good old function call cache (already presented many times in this Cookbook), with thread-safety included thanks to the Cache base class. Thread-safety of the cache is a must, since the purpose of a cache is to be shared a used by as much code as possible... A multi-threaded application such as a web application server has a strong need for thread-safe cache and pool structures. For a sample usage of FileCache: >>> fc = FileCache(10) # 10 files in memory at most >>> f = open('test.txt','w') >>> f.write('Hello, world !') >>> f.close() >>> fc['test.txt'] 'Hello, world !' >>> fc['test.txt'] # this time the file is checked but not read 'Hello, world !' >>> f = open('test.txt','w') >>> f.write('Hello, me !') >>> f.close() >>> fc['test.txt'] # this time the file is checked and re-read 'Hello, me' A sample usage of HTTPCache : >>> hc = HTTPCache(1000) # maximum 1000 documents in the cache >>> hc['http://www.google.com/'] HTTPEntity('<html>[snipped]</html>',...) >>> hc['http://www.google.com'] # the problem is, google don't want its homepage to be cached, so there is no gain HTTPEntity('<html>[snipped]</html>',...) >>> hc['http://www.google.com'].metadata # that's why : no Last-Modified, no ETag, no Expires headers. {'content-length': '2360', 'set-cookie': 'PREF=[snipped]; expires=Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.fr', 'server': 'GWS/2.1', 'connection': 'Keep-Alive', 'cache-control': 'private', 'date': 'Wed, 01 Sep 2004 21:21:50 GMT', 'content-type': 'text/html'} >>> hc['http://diveintomark.org/xml/atom.xml'] HTTPEntity('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>[snipped]',...) >>> hc['http://diveintomark.org/xml/atom.xml'] # the second call is much faster, since Mark put some cache hint in order to save his bandwidth HTTPEntity('<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>[snipped]',...) >>> hc['http://diveintomark.org/xml/atom.xml'].metadata # here's why : nice Expires, Last-Modified and ETag headers {'content-length': '9785', 'accept-ranges': 'bytes', 'expires': 'Thu, 02 Sep 2004 01:23:43 GMT', 'vary': '*', 'server':'Apache/1.3.31 (Debian GNU/Linux)', 'last-modified': 'Wed, 01 Sep 2004 03:26:16 GMT', 'connection': 'close', 'etag': '"e80a6-2639-41354158"', 'cache-control': 'max-age=14400', 'date': 'Wed, 01 Sep 2004 21:23:43 GMT', 'content-type': 'application/xml'} Sample usage of FunctionCache: >>> from time import sleep >>> def my_long_function(value): ... sleep(5) ... return value+1 >>> my_long_function(2) # 5 seconds later... 3 >>> cached = FunctionCache(my_long_function,10) # keep the 10 last calls in memory >>> cached(2) # 5 seconds later... 3 >>> cached(2) # immediate answer 3
Add comment Number of comments: 4 Update, Nicolas Lehuen, 2004/09/07 Changes : - added a WeakCache abstract class - all short member names such a entry._p, cache._d and so on have been renamed to longer, more explicit names. Hopefully the code is more readable now. - Cache.extract is renamed to Cache._unpack, and must return NOT_INITIALIZED if the entry is invalid. Cache._pack does the opposite of Cache._unpack. See WeakCache for an example use. - ModuleCache now return Module objects, which still are placeholder classes but with a better repr(). Add comment Update, Nicolas Lehuen, 2004/10/13 In __setitem__, an entry lock was forgotten when setting the value on an already existing entry. Add comment Update, Nicolas Lehuen, 2005/10/05 Updated the code to the latest version I'm using. The API for check() and build() has slightly changed : the "key" parameter has been added. The ModuleCache class now uses real module objects instead of fake ones. Add comment Update, Nicolas Lehuen, 2006/02/08 Compatibility improvements : this latest version is compatible with Python 2.2, and with Python versions which do not include thread support. Performance improvements : FileCache stat() the file to test if it is modified, and open() it only if it is the case. Previously it opened the file each and every time, even if it wasn't modified. Add comment