title: PHP memcache design patterns
body: <p>We use memcache basically as an after thought to just cache query results.</p>
  
  <p>Invalidation is a nightmare due to the way it was implemented.  We since learned some techniques with memcache thru reading the mailing list, for example the trick to allow group invalidation of a bunch of keys.  For those who know it, skip the next paragraph..</p>
  
  <p>For those who don't know and are interested, the trick is adding a sequence number to your keys and storing that sequence number in memcache.  Then every time before you do your "get" you grab the current sequence number and build your keys around that.  Then, to invalidate the whole group you just increment that sequence number.</p>
  
  <p>So anyway, I'm currently revising our model to implement this.</p>
  
  <p>My question is..</p>
  
  <p>We didn't know about this pattern, and I'm sure there are others we don't know about.  I've searched and haven't been able to find any design patterns on the web for implementing memcache, best practices, etc.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone point me to something like this or even just write up an example?  I would like to make sure we don't make a beginners mistake in our new refactoring.</p>