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Express.js

We’ve built a small Express.js example here: MemCachier Express.js sample app.
Related tutorials:

In Express.js you can use the standard memjs interface to get and set values as described in our Node.js documentation to cache expensive computations or database queries:

var memjs = require('memjs')

var mc = memjs.Client.create(process.env.MEMCACHIER_SERVERS, {
  failover: true,  // default: false
  timeout: 1,      // default: 0.5 (seconds)
  keepAlive: true  // default: false
})

mc.set('hello', 'memcachier', {expires:0}, function(err, val) {
  if(err != null) {
    console.log('Error setting value: ' + err)
  }
})

mc.get('hello', function(err, val) {
  if(err != null) {
    console.log('Error getting value: ' + err)
  }
  else {
    console.log(val.toString('utf8'))
  }
})

In addition there are two Express.js specific ways to use Memcache:

  1. Cache rendered views
  2. Store sessions

Cache rendered views

To cache rendered views it is best to create an Express.js middleware function as such:

var cacheView = function(req, res, next) {
  var view_key = '_view_cache_' + req.originalUrl || req.url;
  mc.get(view_key, function(err, val) {
    if(err == null && val != null) {
      // Found the rendered view -> send it immediately
      res.send(val.toString('utf8'));
      return;
    }
    // Cache the rendered view for future requests
    res.sendRes = res.send
    res.send = function(body){
      mc.set(view_key, body, {expires:0}, function(err, val){/* handle error */})
      res.sendRes(body);
    }
    next();
  });
}

If you use the cacheView middleware you need to take care to invalidate the cache whenever the view needs to be re-rendered, e.g., when the content changes. This can be done by deleting the cached item:

mc.delete('_view_cache_/?n=' + req.body.n, function(err, val){/* handle error */});

Storing Sessions in Memcache

Memcache works well for sessions that time out, however, since Memcache is a cache and thus not persistent, saving long-lived sessions in Memcache might not be ideal. For long-lived sessions consider a permanent storage option such as your database.

To use sessions in Express you need express-session and to store them in Memcache you need connect-memjs:

$ npm install express-session connect-memjs

Then you can configure sessions in your app:

var session = require('express-session');
var MemcachedStore = require('connect-memjs')(session);
var express = require("express");
var app = express();

// Session config
app.use(session({
  secret: 'ClydeIsASquirrel',
  resave: 'false',
  saveUninitialized: 'false',
  store: new MemcachedStore({
    servers: [process.env.MEMCACHIER_SERVERS],
    prefix: '_session_'
  })
}));