MVC 3 Partial View Caching Not Honoring web.config settings

Question

User327185541 posted

I posted a question on stack overflow about how partial view output caching issues:

 @Html.Action("All", "Template")

 [OutputCache(CacheProfile = "Templates")]
    public ActionResult All()
    {
        return Content("This stinks.");
    }
<caching>
  <outputCacheSettings>
    <outputCacheProfiles>
      <clear/>
      <add name="Templates" duration="3600" varyByParam="none"/>       
    </outputCacheProfiles>
  </outputCacheSettings>
  <outputCache  enableOutputCache="false" enableFragmentCache="false" />
</caching>

1. It errors out if you try to use a cache profile
2. If you turn off caching in the web.config. IT STILL CACHES
3. These settings work fine for normal view, just not partial view... 

Answer 1

User197322208 posted

1. Output cache profile applies to PAGES. MVC caches THE ACTIONS, not the pages/views.

2. What ?Please detail

3. Even if it works now( BTW : what MVC do you use?)  the reccomended way is to use OutputcacheAttribute , not web.config.( see the similarity with Security?)

I deeply sorry! unrellevant post!

Answer 2

User327185541 posted

Ok, that doesn't seem all right.

 I'm using the same OutputcacheAttribute to decorate an action for rendering a view as with a partial view, I'm only using the web.config to change wheter it's on and for how long to cache. The difference is that the view action honors the setting but the partial view doesn't.

 If what you were saying were true then decorated actions that return views shouldn't work either.

Answer 3

User327185541 posted

In short, I think there are several bugs in the current release of MVC 3.

1. Validating child configuration code is wrong.

            private void ValidateChildActionConfiguration() {
            if (Duration <= 0) {
                throw new InvalidOperationException(MvcResources.OutputCacheAttribute_InvalidDuration);
            }
 
            if (String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(VaryByParam)) {
                throw new InvalidOperationException(MvcResources.OutputCacheAttribute_InvalidVaryByParam);
            }
 
            if (!String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(CacheProfile) ||
                !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(SqlDependency) ||
                !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(VaryByContentEncoding) ||
                !String.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(VaryByHeader) ||
                _locationWasSet || _noStoreWasSet) {
                throw new InvalidOperationException(MvcResources.OutputCacheAttribute_ChildAction_UnsupportedSetting);
            }
        }

2. Not honoring whether cache is enabled or not, is a big no-no.

3. Not making it apparent through the api or error messages that something isn't supported

If you mistakenly try to use any parameter but duration and varybyparam you will get an error saying that duration is not set, instead of an error like, "Hey we forgot to implement [enter setting name] in this situation, don't use it please". Basically that third statement will rarely if ever get hit.

This feature probably should have been written as a separate attribute, or they could just implement the remaining attributes, or maybe just throw the correct error message.  The one big beef I have is that if I turn of caching in the web.config, it should turn off for all cases, not just pages, this is huge and very misleading to customers and I'm sure will stump a lot of people unknowingly.

Answer 4

User327185541 posted

Wrote a quick blog post on how to modify the source to fix some of these issues:

http://thenullreference.com/blog/fixing-the-asp-net-mvc-3-outputcacheattribute-for-partial-views-to-honor-some-web-config-settings/

Answer 5

User401360897 posted

One thing you must know about that

Partial caching in MVC 3 doesn't use the standard ASP.NET APIs since they're insufficient for MVC's implementation

http://forums.asp.net/p/1640980/4246810.aspx#4246810?Re%3a+Extensible+Partial+Output+Caching+in+ASP.NET+MVC+3