Use Mysql AUTO_INCREMENT to support key value cache, which should be combined by an integer and string. It means to reduce the database storage size, and improve query performance. All cache will store in process memory, and will never be expired, until the process dies, so the less kvs you use, the better performance you will get. BTW, 100,000 general strings use 10MB memory. Some relatived articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_database Usage ------------------------------------------ ## setup ```ruby create_table :kv_browser_names, :options => 'ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8' do |t| t.string :name t.timestamps end class KvBrowserName < ActiveRecord::Base include IdNameCache end ``` or ```ruby create_table :common_tag, :options => 'ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8' do |t| t.integer :tagid t.string :tagname end class CommonTag < ActiveRecord::Base self.table_name = :common_tag self.primary_key = :tagid include IdNameCache; set_key_value :tagid, :tagname # include IdNameCache; set_key_value_without_create :tagid, :tagname # if you dont want create it automately end ``` ### use cases ```text ruby-1.9.3-rc1 :001 > QuizTag[1] QuizTag Load (0.3ms) SELECT `common_tag`.* FROM `common_tag` WHERE `common_tag`.`tagid` = 1 LIMIT 1 => "Android" ruby-1.9.3-rc1 :002 > QuizTag[1] => "Android" ruby-1.9.3-rc1 :003 > QuizTag['Android'] QuizTag Load (0.5ms) SELECT `common_tag`.* FROM `common_tag` WHERE `common_tag`.`tagname` = 'Android' LIMIT 1 => 1 ruby-1.9.3-rc1 :004 > QuizTag['Android'] => 1 ``` == Copyright MIT, David Chen at eoe.cn