Suggestion: Move caching of source models into AbstractSource

[schmengler]

Summary (*)

The EAV source model base class \Magento\Eav\Model\Entity\Attribute\Source\AbstractSource contains a protected attribute $_options that is meant to cache the options. Unfortunately this is not enforced, instead each implementation of getAllOptions() is responsible to use that cache properly.

EAV source models often load possible values for attributes from external resources. Every access to those values, e.g. with $product->getAttributeText() calls getAllOptions() on the source model. So it makes sense that the result of this method should only be calculated once. As far as I see, all core source models already do this, using $_options, but it is easy to miss in custom implementations, which can have significant performance impact.

Examples (*)

A typical "correct" implementation of getAllOptions():

    public function getAllOptions()
    {
        if (empty($this->_options)) {
            $materials = $this->materialRepository->getList($this->searchCriteriaBuilder->create())->getItems();
            foreach ($materials as $material) {
                $this->_options[] = ['value' => $material->getId(), 'label' => $material->getTitle()];
            }
        }
        return $this->_options;
    }

A typical problematic implementation:

    public function getAllOptions()
    {
        $options = [];
        $materials = $this->materialRepository->getList($this->searchCriteriaBuilder->create())->getItems();
        foreach ($materials as $material) {
            $options[] = ['value' => $material->getId(), 'label' => $material->getTitle()];
        }
        return $options;
    }

Proposed solution

Move caching as default behavior into AbstractSource:

    public function getAllOptions()
    {
        if (empty($this->_options)) {
            $this->_options = $this->loadOptions();
        }
        return $this->_options;
    }
    abstract protected function loadOptions() : array;

Implementations then override loadOptions() instead of getAllOptions(). The core source models should lead by example.

BC considerations

To maintain backwards compatibility, loadOptions() can be optional instead:

    protected function loadOptions() : array
    {
        return [];
    }

This way existing implementations, that override getAllOptions() still work.

[magento-engcom-team]

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[magento-engcom-team]

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[magento-engcom-team]

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[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed after 14 days if no further activity occurs. Is this issue still relevant? If so, what is blocking it? Is there anything you can do to help move it forward? Thank you for your contributions!

[schmengler]

Well, the core team decided against it (see #20087 (review)). It is still relevant because carelessly written extensions easily bring down performance in product exports.

It would be easy and helpful to prevent those developer errors.

[atrandafir]

What if someone uses the options list programatically and doesn't want to cache it?

I mean, I'm writing a custom import script.

And while looping products in the CSV, if some attribute value is missing, I create it.

Problem is that if I try to get the "fresh" list of options of that attribute to get the id of the new created value.. well, I can't, cause I get the old cached list.

I might end up doing it with SQL queries instead..

Here's the code that I'm using:

function createMissingGrappeTypeValue($attribute_value) {
  global $grappeTypeAttributeInfo, $eavSetup;
  
  $attribute_arr = [$attribute_value];
  
  $option=array();
  $option['attribute_id'] = $grappeTypeAttributeInfo->getAttributeId();
  foreach($attribute_arr as $key=>$value){
      $option['value'][$value][0]=$value;
      $storeId=0;
      $option['value'][$value][$storeId] = $value;
  }
  
  $eavSetup->addAttributeOption($option);
}

function getAttributeValues($attribute_name) {
  global $eavAttribute;
  $attr = $eavAttribute->get(\Magento\Catalog\Model\Product::ENTITY, $attribute_name);
  $allOptions = $attr->getSource()->getAllOptions(false);
  $result=array();
  foreach ($allOptions as $allOption) {
    $result[$allOption['value']]=$allOption['label'];
  }
  return $result;
}

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed after 14 days if no further activity occurs. Is this issue still relevant? If so, what is blocking it? Is there anything you can do to help move it forward? Thank you for your contributions!

[schmengler]

@atrandafir

What if someone uses the options list programatically and doesn't want to cache it?

You already have this problem with all existing implementations that follow best practice and do cache the options. If you explicitly need it uncached, you can always create a new instance of the source model to have an empty $_options cache.