Does your website take A LOT of time to load? Speed is a crucial factor that shouldn’t be overlooked while building a high-quality website. A website that takes minutes to load often frustrates a visitor to the point that he might not return. 

The best news is that you can use caching to speed up your Rails application. Caching stores frequently used data in a special memory, so the website doesn't have to work as hard to get that data from the database. This makes the website load faster and improves the user's experience.

This blog post will show you different ways to make your Rails application faster. We'll look at four main Rails caching strategies: Fragment caching, Redis caching, Low-level caching, and Cache invalidation. Scroll down to learn how these will help you improve your app's performance.

Fragment Caching in Rails

As the name indicates, Fragment caching Rails is a rails caching technique that allows you to cache specific portions of your Rails views. Instead of updating the whole view, Fragment caching in Rails helps you update the content that changes infrequently, such as static elements or navigation menus.

For example, imagine you have a blog with a section that displays user comments. Instead of generating this section anew for every request, you can cache it. This means that when a user loads a page, Rails can quickly serve the cached version of the comments, significantly speeding up load times.

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You can also set expiration strategies for your cached content. This ensures the cache is refreshed periodically or when specific events occur, such as adding new comments.

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Using Redis for Caching

Another important technique for Rails performance optimization is using Redis. Redis is a popular in-memory data structure store for caching with excellent performance. It can be used in various caching contexts because it provides a range of data structures, such as lists, sorted sets, strings, hashes, and sets.

Follow these steps to set up the Redis caching in Rails:

1. Install the Redis gem: gem 'redis'
2. Configure Redis in your config/initializers/redis.rb file:

Rails.application.config.cache_store = :redis_store, { url: 'redis://localhost:6379/0' }

3. To use Redis for caching in your Rails app, call the Rails.cache method:

Rails.cache.write('cache_key', 'cached_value')

Rails.cache.read('cache_key')

Redis is particularly useful for caching view fragments, complex data structures, and the results of expensive operations. Its ability to handle large volumes of data efficiently makes it a robust solution for improving performance.

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Low-Level Caching with Rails

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Reading and storing data in a key-value store is all that low-level caching in Rails refers to. Rails support files on the file system, external stores like Redis, and an in-memory store right out of the box. 

In contrast to viewing caching, where Rails has built-in helper methods to handle these minute details for you, "low-level" caching involves working directly with the Rails cache object, telling it what value to save and what key to use.

Low-level caching in Rails allows you to cache more granular application elements, such as SQL queries and custom objects. This technique comes handy for operations that involve large, expensive datasets.

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For example, to save visiting the database each time a SQL query is conducted, you may cache the results of frequently run queries. Similarly, costly custom objects that require computation can be cached so that the costly operation is only needed when required.

Caching SQL Queries:

• Use the ActiveRecord::Base.connection.cache method to cache SQL results.

Caching Custom Objects:

• Implement a custom caching strategy using the Rails.cache API.

Cache Invalidation Techniques

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Rails cache invalidation is crucial for keeping your data consistent between the cache and your database. If your data changes, it's important to ensure the cache is updated or cleared accordingly. This is where Rails cache invalidation helps in performance optimization. 

Cached data invalidation deletes or updates the data when the original data changes. It's essential because applications that depend on cached data might face problems if the data becomes inaccurate or outdated.

Here are some common Rails cache invalidation techniques to avoid serving stake data:

• Time-based invalidation: Automatically invalidate the cache after a certain time.
• Dependency-based invalidation: Invalidate the cache when related data changes.
• Manual invalidation: Explicitly clear the cache using Rails.cache.delete.

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Conclusion

Selecting the right caching strategy depends on your needs and expectations.  Fragment caching tails is ideal for speeding up page rendering by caching view components, while Redis offers a high-performance caching solution for complex and large-scale data. Low-level caching helps optimize individual operations, and effective cache invalidation ensures data consistency.

Pick one or all of these techniques to improve the performance of your Rails application and provide a faster, more responsive experience for your users. For high-quality and streamlined results, head to Techdots and improve your web application’s performance. 

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