Caching in custom ActionFilter

Question

I would like to be able to specify a cache duration on my own action filter's OnActionExecuting method.

Whilst I was able to decorate my method with the built-in System.Web.Mvc.OutputCacheAttribute attribute it didn't work. I take it the use-case for these is purely in a controller's action methods.

[OutputCache(Duration = 300)]
public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
{
  //some code here
}

So in terms of caching within a custom action filter, what are the best practices?

Answer 1

I don't think there is anything out-of-the-box in ASP.NET MVC for this. You can use System.Web.Caching.Cache class and develop your own solution.

var cache = new Cache();

// Set cache value: 
cache.Add("YourKey", "YourData", null, DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(300), Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, CacheItemPriority.Default, null);

// Get cache value:
var value = cache["YourKey"];