[Building Sakai] Anyone using AssignmentService cache?

[David Adams]

So I stumbled across the m_caching variable in the BaseAssignmentService code and realized if set using Spring by setting caching at org.sakaiproject.assignment.api.AssignmentService=true that three new caches are created for the three Assignment tables. This option isn't documented anywhere that I can find, it's not referenced in the Spring config file for assignments, nor is it listed in the default.sakai.properties file. The svn history shows that most of the cache related code was part of the code in June 2005 when revision 1 was imported from CVS by Lance.

We've started logging all of our SQL queries, and I've noticed that in certain situations, assignment data can get pulled over and over again with the exact same query, so this seems like an ideal candidate for good caching. So my question is: does anyone run in production with caching at org.sakaiproject.assignment.api.AssignmentService=true?

Does anyone know that this is a dangerous or beneficial setting? Has anyone looked at it and decided to leave it alone?

I appreciate any feedback you can provide. Thanks.

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David Adams
Director, Learning Systems Integration and Support
Virginia Tech Learning Technologies