Tutorial: Working with localStorage

Working with localStorage

import CacheFactory from 'cachefactory';

const cacheFactory = new CacheFactory();

// This cache will sync itself with localStorage if it exists, otherwise it
// won't. Every time the browser loads this app, this cache will attempt to
// initialize itself with any data it had already saved to localStorage (or
// sessionStorage if you used that).
const cache = cacheFactory.createCache('my-cache', {
  // Items added to this cache expire after 15 minutes
  maxAge: 15 * 60 * 1000,

  // This cache will clear itself every hour
  cacheFlushInterval: 60 * 60 * 1000,

  // Items will be deleted from this cache right when they expire
  deleteOnExpire: 'aggressive',

  // This cache will use `localStorage`
  storageMode: 'localStorage'
});

Using cachefactory in browsers that DON'T support localStorage:

Option 1

Do nothing (the cache will just store data in memory)

Option 2

Create/use a polyfill that provides the global localStorage and sessionStorage objects. CacheFactory will attempt to use these if it finds them.

Option 3

Tell CacheFactory exactly which polyfill to use (also useful if you just want to use your own implementation/wrapper for localStorage):

const localStoragePolyfill = {
  getItem: function (key) { ... },
  setItem: function (key, value) { ... },
  removeItem: function (key) { ... }
};

// Always use the polyfill
const cache = cacheFactory.createCache('my-cache', {
  // Items added to this cache expire after 15 minutes
  maxAge: 15 * 60 * 1000,

  // This cache will clear itself every hour
  cacheFlushInterval: 60 * 60 * 1000,

  // Items will be deleted from this cache right when they expire
  deleteOnExpire: 'aggressive',

  // This cache will use `localStorage`
  storageMode: 'localStorage',

  // CacheFactory will use this polyfill instead of looking for localStorage
  storageImpl: localStoragePolyfill
});

// Conditionally use the polyfill
const options = {
  // Items added to this cache expire after 15 minutes
  maxAge: 15 * 60 * 1000,

  // This cache will clear itself every hour
  cacheFlushInterval: 60 * 60 * 1000,

  // Items will be deleted from this cache right when they expire
  deleteOnExpire: 'aggressive',

  // This cache will use `localStorage`
  storageMode: 'localStorage'
};
if (!window.localStorage) {
  options.storageImpl = localStoragePolyfill;
}
const cache = cacheFactory.createCache('my-cache', options);

Documentation on the interface that must be implemented by any storageImpl polyfill used by cachefactory can be found on the W3C Recommendation page for webstorage. The interface itself looks like:

interface Storage {
  readonly attribute unsigned long length;
  DOMString? key(unsigned long index);
  getter DOMString getItem(DOMString key);
  setter creator void setItem(DOMString key, DOMString value);
  deleter void removeItem(DOMString key);
  void clear();
};

CacheFactory cares only about these three methods:

  • setItem
  • getItem
  • removeItem

One developer suggested using store.js —a wrapper and polyfill for localStorage. However, store.js has its own API that doesn't match that of the webstorage spec, so if you want to use store.js or any other 3rd-party polyfill then you'll need to create a wrapper for it if it doesn't have the same API as localStorage.

For example:

const storeJsToStandard = {
  getItem: store.get,
  setItem: store.set,
  removeItem: store.remove
};

cacheFactory.createCache('my-cache', {
  storageMode: 'localStorage',
  storageImpl: storeJsToStandard
});