Memcached Stats Settings in Ruby (Detailed Guide w/ Code Examples)

Use Case(s)

Memcached stats settings can be used in various scenarios including:

1. Monitoring and troubleshooting: Checking the statistics can help identify any potential problems with your Memcached instances.
2. Capacity planning: You can look at statistics such as memory usage to help determine if you need to scale up your resources.

Code Examples

Here's an example of how to retrieve Memcached stats in Ruby using the dalli gem:

require 'dalli'
dc = Dalli::Client.new('localhost:11211')
stats = dc.stats
puts stats

In this code, the 'dalli' gem is used to connect to a Memcached server running on localhost port 11211. The stats method is then called to retrieve the statistics, which are displayed using puts.

Another example shows specific statistics like current items, get hits and misses:

require 'dalli'
dc = Dalli::Client.new('localhost:11211')
stats = dc.stats
puts "Current items: #{stats['localhost:11211']['curr_items']}"
puts "Get hits: #{stats['localhost:11211']['get_hits']}"
puts "Get misses: #{stats['localhost:11211']['get_misses']}"

In this example, specific statistics are accessed from the stats hash and printed out.

Best Practices

1. Avoid frequent calls to stats: Frequent calls to retrieve stats can impact the performance of your Memcached server. Use it judiciously for monitoring purposes.
2. Handle exceptions: Always handle exceptions while connecting to the Memcached server or retrieving stats to avoid application crashes.

Common Mistakes

Not checking whether Memcached server is running: Before retrieving stats, always ensure that your Memcached server is running to avoid any connection failures.

FAQs

Q: What does 'curr_items' in the stats mean? A: 'curr_items' refers to the current number of items stored by the server.

Q: What do 'get_hits' and 'get_misses' represent? A: 'get_hits' and 'get_misses' represent the number of successful and failed retrieval requests respectively.