Usage of NCache from .NET Application

After configuring NCache successfully, you can start developing the application by embedding NCache API calls. NCache client applications can communicate with the cache servers through GetCache method. This method establishes connection between client and server and returns a cache handle. This cache handle can then be further used for Add, Insert, Get, Remove and other cache operations.

Let's quickly create a console .NET application to demonstrate the use of NCache.

Step 1:

Launch Visual Studio 2017.

Step 2:

Create a new Console Application for .NET Core.

Step 3:

Install NCache NuGet package on Package Manager Console as mentioned below:

Install-Package Alachisoft.NCache.Professional.SDK

Step 4:

Select "Add->Class" menu from Solutions to create a new class Product as following:

[Serializable]
public class Product
{
  public int ProductID { get; set; }
  public string ProductName { get; set; }
  public string Category { get; set; }
  public int Price { get; set; }
}

Step 5:

Add the following namespaces to your Program.cs file or similar:

using Alachisoft.NCache.Client;
using Alachisoft.NCache.Runtime.Exceptions;

Step 6:

Use the following code snippet to Program.cs or similar class of your application to quickly test NCache.

class Program
{
   public static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      try
      {
          // Set the name of the cache your application needs to talk to
          string cacheId = "demoClusteredCache";

          // Here you get cache handle by initializing cache
          ICache cache = CacheManager.GetCache(cacheId);

          // Let's create Product class object to be added to the cache
          Product product = new Product()
          {
              ProductID = 1001,
              ProductName = "Dell Inspiron",
              Category = "Computers",
              Price = 600
          };

          // Create a cache item to be added to the cache.
          // You can set expiration, eviction etc with cache item. See NCache API reference.
          CacheItem cacheItem = new CacheItem(product);

          // Cache is a key-value store.
          // Every cache item is uniquely identified by its cache key.
          string cacheKey = $"Product:{product.ProductID}";

          // To put an item into the cache, you can use both Add and Insert methods
          cache.Add(cacheKey, cacheItem);

          // Let's update the product price
          product.Price = 550;
          cacheItem.SetValue(product);

          // Insert is used to update the existing cache items
          cache.Insert(cacheKey, cacheItem);

          // Get cache item from cache
          product = cache.Get<Product>(cacheKey);

          // You can call Remove to remove a cache item from cache
          cache.Remove(cacheKey);
      }
      catch (OperationFailedException ex)
      {
          // NCache specific exception

          if (ex.ErrorCode == NCacheErrorCodes.KEY_ALREADY_EXISTS)
          {
              // The specified key already exists in cache
              // Add with a new key or use Insert
          }
          else
          {
              // Exception can occur due to:
              // Connection Failures
              // Operation performed during state transfer
              // Operation Timeout
          }
      }
      catch (Exception ex)
      {
          // Any generic exception like ArgumentNullException or ArgumentException
      }
   }
}

Step 7:

Compile and run your program.

Usage of NCache from .NET Application

See Also