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Implementing Cache in Golang

Golang

Aditya Joshi 79

Implementing Cache in Golang

Aditya Joshi
Level Up Coding
Published in
5 min read21 hours ago

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Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

Implementing a cache in Golang can be achieved in various ways, depending on your specific requirements and use case. In this article, I’ll show you a basic example of implementing an in-memory cache using a map to store key-value pairs. Please note that this is a simple example for educational purposes. In a real-world scenario, you might consider using more advanced caching libraries github.com/patrickmn/go-cache or external caching systems like Redis.

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Basic functionalities of a cache:

  1. Data: Storage: The cache temporarily stores data in memory for faster access, as opposed to accessing the source on disk or a remote server, or generating it through computation.
  2. Data Retrieval: The cache allows data to be retrieved quickly based on a key or identifier. When a request is made for data, the cache checks whether it already contains the requested data based on the provided key.
  3. Cache Hit: A “cache hit” occurs when the requested data is found in the cache. In this case, the data can be quickly returned to the requester, saving the time and resources required to fetch or compute the data from the source.
  4. Cache Miss: A “cache miss” occurs when the requested data is not found in the cache. In this case, the cache needs to fetch the data from the source, store it in the cache for future access, and then return it to the requester.
  5. Cache Expiration/Time-to-Live (TTL): Some cached data may have a limited validity period. A cache can implement a Time-to-Live (TTL) mechanism to automatically remove data from the cache when it expires. This ensures that cached data remains fresh and accurate.

Implementation

  1. We define a Cache struct to represent the in-memory cache, which is essentially a map of key-value pairs, protected by a mutex for thread-safety.

2. The NewCache function creates a new instance of the cache.

type Cache struct {
 data map[string]interface{}
 mu sync.RWMutex
}

// NewCache creates a new instance of the cache.
func NewCache() *Cache {
 return &Cache{
 data: make(map[string]interface{}),
 }
}