There are a variety of things written to use flexible back-end key/value datastores via the ActiveSupport::Cache API.
For instance, say, activejob-status.
I have sometimes in the past wanted to be able to use such things storing the data in an rdbms, say vai ActiveRecord. Make a table for it. Sure, this won’t be nearly as fast or “scalable” as, say, redis, but for so many applications it’s just fine. And I often avoid using a feature at all if it is going to require to me to add another service (like another redis instance).
So I’ve considered writing an ActiveSupport::Cache adapter for ActiveRecord, but never really gotten around to it, so I keep avoiding using things I’d be trying out if I had it….
Well, today I discovered the ruby gem that’s a key/value store swiss army knife, moneta. Look, it has an ActiveSupport::Cache adapter so you can use any moneta-supported store as an ActiveSupport::Cache API. AND then if you want to use an rdbms as your moneta-supported store, you can do it through ActiveRecord or Sequel.
Great, I don’t have to write the adapter after all, it’s already been done! Assuming it works out okay, which I haven’t actually checked in practice yet.
Writing this in part as a note-to-self so next time I have an itch that can be scratched this way, I remember moneta is there — to at least explore further.
Not sure where to find the docs, but here’s the source for ActiveRecord moneta adapter. It looks like I can create different caches that use different tables, which is the first thing I thought to ensure.
The second thing I thought to look for — can it handle expiration, and purging expired keys? Unclear, I can’t find it. Maybe I could PR it if needed.
And hey, if for some reason you want an ActiveSupport::Cache backed by PStore or BerkelyDB (don’t do it!), or Cassandara (you got me, no idea?), moneta has you too.
Bibliographic Wilderness 