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Cache Groups {#caching.groups}

You can do more elaborate grouping by setting up $cache_id groups. This is accomplished by separating each sub-group with a vertical bar | in the $cache_id value. You can have as many sub-groups as you like.

  • You can think of cache groups like a directory hierarchy. For instance, a cache group of 'a|b|c' could be thought of as the directory structure '/a/b/c/'.

  • clearCache(null,'a|b|c') would be like removing the files '/a/b/c/*'. clearCache(null,'a|b') would be like removing the files '/a/b/*'.

  • If you specify a $compile_id such as clearCache(null,'a|b','foo') it is treated as an appended cache group '/a/b/c/foo/'.

  • If you specify a template name such as clearCache('foo.tpl','a|b|c') then Smarty will attempt to remove '/a/b/c/foo.tpl'.

  • You CANNOT remove a specified template name under multiple cache groups such as '/a/b/*/foo.tpl', the cache grouping works left-to-right ONLY. You will need to group your templates under a single cache group hierarchy to be able to clear them as a group.

Cache grouping should not be confused with your template directory hierarchy, the cache grouping has no knowledge of how your templates are structured. So for example, if you have a template structure like themes/blue/index.tpl and you want to be able to clear all the cache files for the "blue" theme, you will need to create a cache group structure that mimics your template file structure, such as display('themes/blue/index.tpl','themes|blue'), then clear them with clearCache(null,'themes|blue').

<?php
require('Smarty.class.php');
$smarty = new Smarty;

$smarty->setCaching(Smarty::CACHING_LIFETIME_CURRENT);

// clear all caches with 'sports|basketball' as the first two cache_id groups
$smarty->clearCache(null,'sports|basketball');

// clear all caches with "sports" as the first cache_id group. This would
// include "sports|basketball", or "sports|(anything)|(anything)|(anything)|..."
$smarty->clearCache(null,'sports');

// clear the foo.tpl cache file with "sports|basketball" as the cache_id
$smarty->clearCache('foo.tpl','sports|basketball');


$smarty->display('index.tpl','sports|basketball');
?>