MemoryCache Class

The MemoryCache class is a concrete implementation of the abstract ObjectCache class.

Note

The MemoryCache class is similar to the ASP.NET Cache class. The MemoryCache class has many properties and methods for accessing the cache that will be familiar to you if you have used the ASP.NET Cache class. The main differences between the Cache and MemoryCache classes are that the MemoryCache class has been changed to make it usable by .NET Framework applications that are not ASP.NET applications. For example, the MemoryCache class has no dependencies on the System.Web assembly. Another difference is that you can create multiple instances of the MemoryCache class for use in the same application and in the same AppDomain instance.

The MemoryCache class does not allow null as a value in the cache. Any attempt to add or change a cache entry with a value of null will fail.

The MemoryCache type does not implement cache regions. Therefore, when you call MemoryCache methods that implement base methods that contain a parameter for regions, do not pass a value for the parameter. The methods that use the region parameter all supply a default null value. For example, the MemoryCache.AddOrGetExisting method overload has a regionName parameter whose default value is null.

The following example declares a reference to the default memory cache instance. The cache entry uses a CacheItemPolicy object to provide eviction and expiration details for the cache entry. It also uses a ChangeMonitor object to monitor the state of the source data (which is a file) on the file system.

private void btnGet_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    ObjectCache cache = MemoryCache.Default;
    string fileContents = cache["filecontents"] as string;

    if (fileContents == null)
    {
        CacheItemPolicy policy = new CacheItemPolicy();
        
        List<string> filePaths = new List<string>();
        filePaths.Add("c:\\cache\\example.txt");

        policy.ChangeMonitors.Add(new 
        HostFileChangeMonitor(filePaths));

        // Fetch the file contents.
        fileContents = 
            File.ReadAllText("c:\\cache\\example.txt");
        
        cache.Set("filecontents", fileContents, policy);
    }

    Label1.Text = fileContents;
}

.NET Framework

Windows 8 Release Preview, Windows Server 2012, Windows 7, Windows Vista SP2, Windows Server 2008 SP2, Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core Role supported with SP1 or later; Itanium not supported)

The .NET Framework does not support all versions of every platform. For a list of the supported versions, see .NET Framework System Requirements.

This type is thread safe.

Reference

Other Resources