cache_get()
returns $cache
objects even if the cached item is stale (expired). The cached data will not be rebuilt every hour in the following example:
<?php
/**
* Builds complicated data for the monkey grip.
*/
function custom_monkey_grip_data() {
// Return the cached data
$cache = cache_get('custom:monkey_grip');
if (!$cache) {
// Some expensive processing to build the data.
$data = complicated_recursion_and_loops_on_lots_of_data();
// Cache the data and rebuild it every hour
$expire = time() + (60 * 60);
cache_set('custom:monkey_grip', $data, 'cache', $expire);
}
else {
$data = $cache->data;
}
return $data;
}
?>
Today I had a long and very positive meeting about software patents and the NZ Patents Bill with Commerce Committee chairperson, Labour party's Lianne Dalziel, as well as Drupal-peers Dave Lane and Jonathan Hunt. Dalziel, Christchurch East MP, was well-informed about the Patents Bill, the Ministry of Economic Development's Patent Review and the insufficient attention paid to software patents (thanks to our emails and exchange of documents beforehand). She was not so well-informed about software patents and the harm that they cause – as would be expected given the complexity and obscurity of these issues for those who do not work in the software development.
I'm going to be in Auckland this Friday and am meeting up with some other Drupalers to drink, dine and talk Drupal. Please see my post on groups.drupal.org for more details and to let us know if you're coming.
Kathryn Ryan of Radio NZ interviewed Don Christie, president of the NZ Open Source Society and Kevin Ackhurst, managing director of Microsoft NZ on Microsoft's failure to renew their multi-million dollar contract with the NZ government. The interviews and Kathryn's questions are intense and very interesting as Don Christie defends the government's choice to break out of a reliance on Microsoft's products, and Kevin Ackhurst tries to defend Microsoft's position, touting it as a success.