New and Improved: Dancer::Plugin::Cache::CHI and DBD::Oracle

I think it was Gabor who was mentioning that we should promote a little bit more the distributions we upload on CPAN. He’s right. A falling tree might or might not make a sound if no-one is present, but it sure doesn’t hurt to yell “Timber!“.

…

Hum. Okay, that was a remarkably bad metaphor, but you hopefully know what I mean. Anyway, all that to say welcome to New & Improved blog entries, where I quickly showcase any new distribution o’ mine that have new stuff worth mentioning.

To start the show, two distributions for the price of one: Dancer::Plugin::Cache::CHI and DBD::Oracle.

Dancer::Plugin::Cache::CHI

Dancer::Plugin::Cache::CHI v1.2.0 has hit CPAN a few days ago. In that release, four new goodies have appeared.

before_create_cache hook

We now have a hook that gets triggered just before the cache object is created. Can be useful for programatically massaging the cache’s configuration. For example, if the application is run on different machines with a shared cache, one way to have the cache’s namespace set to the host machine would be:

use Sys::Hostname;

    hook before_create_cache => sub {
        config->{plugins}{'Cache::CHI'}{namespace} = hostname;
    };

The whole response is cached, not only the content

In the previous versions, ’cache_page’ would cache the content of the response only. Now, we cache the response’s headers and status as well. Plus, under the hood we don’t halt() anymore, which is hopefully D::P::C::C play more nicely with other plugins.

’honor_no_cache’ configuration option

The standard says that a request can ask for a fresh, never-cached, response by passing the option ’no-cache’ via the ’Cache-Control’ or ’Pragma’ http header. If you want to abide to the will of the user, we now have a configuration item for that:

plugins:
    Cache-CHI:
        driver: Memory
        global: 1
        expires_in: 1 min
        honor_no_cache: 1

With honor_no_cache set to true, pages cached with cache_page() will automagically obey and flush the cache if the agent asks so.

Customizable cache keys

The cache keys now can be customized via cache_page_key_generator(). Want to include the name of the host in the cache key (again, if dealing with a multi-hosted app)? Easy:

cache_page_key_generator sub {
    return join ":", request()->host, request()->path_info;
};

Also, the generated key can also be accessed via cache_page_key():

get '/page/*' => sub {
    push @cached_pages, cache_page_key();

        return cache_page generate_page( splat );
    };

DBD::Oracle

Did you know that the Makefile.PL of DBD::Oracle has a bunch of options? Me neither. But as of version 1.32, you can see’em all by doing:

$ perl Makefile.PL --help                                                                                         
Options:
    -b  Try to use Oracle's own 'build' rule. Defaults to true.

        -r  With '-b', use this names build rule (eg -r=build64).

        -m  Path to 'oracle.mk'

        -h  Path to oracle header files.

        -p  Alter preference for oracle.mk.

        -n  Oracle .mk macro name to use for library list to link with.

        -c  Don't encourage use of shared library.

        -l  Try direct-link to libclntsh.

        -g  Enable debugging (-g for compiler and linker).

        -s  Find a symbol in oracle libs, Don't build a Makefile.

        -S  Find a symbol in oracle & system libs, Don't build a Makefile.

        -v  Be more verbose.

        -d  Much more verbose for debugging.

        -f  Include text of oracle's .mk file within generated Makefile.

        -F  Force - ignore errors.

        -W  Just write a basic default Makefile (won't build).

        -w  Enable many gcc compiler warnings.

        -V  Force assumption of specified Oracle version If == 8 then we don't
            use the new OCI_INIT code and we force our emulation of
            OCILobWriteAppend.