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Xamarin Forms Caching Strategy with Monkey Cache🐒

Today, we will learn caching technology in Xamarin.Forms as Monkey Cache.
Sometimes we need to store data in the application that we develop. For example, HTTP requests, configurations, settings, databases etc.
I need to store HTTP requests for a while during work on a project. I found Xamarin monkey cache while I search about caching strategies in that way.

What is monkey cache?

Monkey cache is a simple way to store any type of data. It supports SQLite-net, LiteDB, and a simple File Store. Monkey Cache is built against .NET Standard 2.0 and that means it is not just using with the mobile applications; it can use in any .NET projects.

How to use?

First of all, let’ s install Monkey Cache in our project from NuGet packages. You can use any file storage type in your project.

I prefer FileStore for this project. I install MonkeyCache 0.1.0.10-beta, MonkeyCache.FileStore 0.1.1.10-beta.

Data is stored in a “Barrel” or IBarrel. Don’t forget to give an application id on the barrel before storing data.

Barrel.ApplicationId = "your_unique_name_here";

If you want to do user-based cache, you can use some code like this:

Barrel.ApplicationId = "your-app-name" + UserId + DateTime.Now;

Caching a Web Request

Http request caching is very easy with Monkey Cache. We can set the expire time easily in this way:

Think like this scenario; I want to store the results of HTTP requests while if the user connected to the internet. I want to take these data from this cache if the user didn’t connect the internet and cached data didn’t expire. Now let’s take a look at the example:

	public async Task<CurrencyModel> GetCurrencyAsync()
	{
	var url = "https://lookup.binlist.net/45717360";
	var client = new HttpClient();

	if (!CrossConnectivity.Current.IsConnected && !Barrel.Current.IsExpired(key: url))
	return Barrel.Current.Get<CurrencyModel>(key: url);

	CurrencyModel result = null;

	var response = await client.GetAsync(url);
	if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
	{
	result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<CurrencyModel>(response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result);

	Barrel.Current.Add(key: url, data: result, expireIn: TimeSpan.FromDays(1));
	}
	return result;
	}