Caching routeInfo.json and react-static-routes.js

[arlair]

I noticed in the build routeInfo.json and react-static-routes.js don't have a hash in the file name, so caching them is difficult.

Would hashes on these files be useful to have, or is there some better way to achieve this?

I did find this code in src/client/methods.js

routeInfo.json?${process.env.REACT_STATIC_CACHE_BUST}

but no mention of how to use it. Presumably you set the environment variable REACT_STATIC_CACHE_BUST to a value before you build.

I seem to recall reading before query strings aren't great for caching, eg:

Query strings on the other hand, have been known to cause caching issues. Some proxies or CDNs aren’t even able to cache files that contain query strings and it is recommended not to use them. Additionally, If you run your site through a site speed test, it will likely return a suggestion to remove query strings. Therefore, when using cache busting, try to use file name or file path versioning wherever possible.
https://www.keycdn.com/support/what-is-cache-busting/

[tannerlinsley]

There are edge cases that limit us from using a hash in the filename for these files. If you would like to investigate and PR a fix, then please do!

[ilijaNL]

There are edge cases that limit us from using a hash in the filename for these files. If you would like to investigate and PR a fix, then please do!

What are the edges cases? Since I think this can improve caching dramatically...

[kosich]

I think I've just run into this caching issue.
I've updated route data structure and I think I was getting an old cached data.
(though, with cache issues you just can't be 100% sure what happened :) )

NOTE: I'm still on 6.3.6 version, so this might be irrelevant for v7.

@tannerlinsley , do you think we could add that anti-cache query string by default?

I mean something like

routeInfo.json?${ process.env.REACT_STATIC_CACHE_BUST || RANDOM_UUID }

Thank you for your time