[FrameworkBundle] missing integration of PSR-16 simple cache

[Tobion]

Description
Cache pools can easily be configured in the framework bundle with

framework:
    cache:
        pools:
            cache.pool1:
                adapter: cache.adapter.redis
            cache.pool2:
                adapter: cache.adapter.redis

But all the cache services created only implement PSR-6 Psr\Cache\CacheItemPoolInterface. We would like to use PSR-16 Psr\SimpleCache\CacheInterface instead. Currently the only solution seems to be to wrap all the pools in an adapter like

services:
    cache.simple.pool1:
        class: Symfony\Component\Cache\Simple\Psr6Cache
        arguments: ['@cache.pool1']

    cache.simple.pool2
        class: Symfony\Component\Cache\Simple\Psr6Cache
        arguments: ['@cache.pool2']

This is quite cumbersome as we have alot of pools. It would be nice if the framework bundle provides a way to use SimpleCache directly. Maybe something like the following would create PSR-16 caches instead:

framework:
    cache:
        pools:
            cache.pool1:
                adapter: cache.adapter.redis
                simple: true
            cache.pool2:
                adapter: cache.adapter.redis
                simple: true

[Tobion]

Another idea would be create a the simple cache adapter automatically for each pool since it's already done for the predefined cache.app

symfony/src/Symfony/Bundle/FrameworkBundle/Resources/config/cache.xml

Lines 14 to 16 in bcff647

	<service id="cache.app.simple" class="Symfony\Component\Cache\Simple\Psr6Cache">
	<argument type="service" id="cache.app" />
	</service>

[ogizanagi]

I tend to agree with this second solution, but that would create the simple cache adapter service id based on a convention, which you tend to avoid (that's why cache pools names are exactly the service id to use).
Given registering the adapter isn't that much overhead for the developer, it may be rather a documentation issue rather than something to fix through configuration ?

[Tobion]

simple cache adapter service id based on a convention, which you tend to avoid

Agree it's not optimal.

rather a documentation issue rather than something to fix through configuration ?

Don't agree as you can easily have a typo in all the adapters you need to configured like injecting the wrong pool into an adapter which is hard to spot since it does not fail.
Also I wonder why the cache component provides all the SimpleCache implementations like Symfony\Component\Cache\Simple\RedisCache if they are not beeing used by symfony at all. You could just use the Psr6Cache adapter for everything then.

[nicolas-grekas]

The fact that this doesn't exist is on purpose: the more choices we provide, the more confused people are. Here, PSR 16 doesn't provide anything over PSR 6. With the new CacheInterface, PSR 16 is not the simplest alternatives if one thinks that's where it fits.
With this reasoning, I think we shouldn't have a configuration helper for it.

[nicolas-grekas]

I'm in favor of deprecating the cache.app.simple service and updating the doc to not tell about the PSR 16 interface so prominently. That's already on my 4.3 list :)

[weaverryan]

And we can / should do that in 4.2, because that’s when the new CacheInterface will be available (which is both easy to use and powerful - best of both worlds)

[lyrixx]

For what it worth I like the PSR-6. It's not as simple as PSR-16 but actually PSR-16 has many drawbacks (the key is duplicated in the code, and it's impossible to know if the item was hit). I always use PSR-6 and I'm teaching only this way.

The new CacheInterface is nice too and I like it too :) But it's not a PSR :/ I'm not sure it's an issue.*

So for me : We should not talk about PSR-16 at all and only promote PSR-6 or the CacheInterface

[nicolas-grekas]

I'd go one step further and deprecate all PSR 16 implementations except a PSR 6 to 16 bridge! (and remove psr/simple-cache from "require")

[Tobion]

It seems like symfonys PSR-6 implementation does not allow to set cache items without fetching the data first? With PSR-16 this should be possible: With $cache->setMultiple() I can just set alot of stuff without having to read it first. But PSR-6 $cache->getItem()->set() will always read it first. CacheItem::isHit and CacheItem::get could be lazy to solve the problem? But it does not seem to be the case.

[nicolas-grekas]

That's correct, that's consistent with wordings in PSR-6. But actually there's a way: using the NullAdapter as a factory for items. Implementing lazy loading at the item level would make everything more complex, better not to me, especially also because saving without fetching first is a very unusual pattern. Only cache warmers may need it.

[Tobion]

I would not call it unusual pattern. We have data importers that basically refresh the cache. Those do not need to read the data first. And it makes a big difference if you do this for alot of items. So basically PSR-6 is unusable for this.

[nicolas-grekas]

It is, using the NullAdapter as a factory.

[Tobion]

I don't know how that should work. If I use the NullAdapter, then it also cannot save data. What do you mean?