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I have a custom field/widget that has a format view function that is highly resource intensive. I currently am caching the result using cache_set()/cache_get() inside the hook_field_formatter_view function for my field.

Is there a better way I could be doing this? I tried to use drupal_render()'s #cache property and it cached the output but still ran my hook_field_formatter_view function.

Basically, I know how to do full page cache (for anonymous users) but how do you cache a field/node/entity (for everyone)?

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    This is a great question - in Drupal 6 you couldn't really (though Panels allows some granular page caching) but I don't know enough about the new Cache API to comment. Very curious to see an answer though. From a general performance note, have you see AuthCache? drupal.org/project/authcache
    – Greg
    Mar 23, 2011 at 8:15
  • That authcache module is interesting. It is just full page cache though (and drupal 6 only currently).
    – Kevin
    Mar 23, 2011 at 11:09
  • What exactly is resource intensive? Is it the loading of additional data that you need to display or the actual rendering? There is drupal.org/project/entitycache, but that only caches the loading of entities, not rendering..
    – Berdir
    Mar 24, 2011 at 10:14
  • The code inside my hook_field_formatter_view is resource intensive (not sure what that is considered). entitycache module seems promising.
    – Kevin
    Mar 25, 2011 at 0:33
  • @Berdir check out my answer. There is a new module called drupal.org/project/render_cache which fills the void.
    – Gokul N K
    Oct 22, 2013 at 8:01

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I currently am caching the result using cache_set()/cache_get() inside the hook_field_formatter_view function for my field

Honestly this is not a bad way to go about doing it. When you have custom logic which is resource intensive, taking responsibility for your own caching decisions is usually the right idea. Honestly, I really wish more developers would familiarize themselves with cache_get/set().

Entitycache appears to be an effort to do this generally, and over time I am sure that some best practices will emerge as more people work in this space. However as of today, for anyone looking at a similar problem-set: "Figure out how to cache it yourself" is a good answer.

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I think you should consider using Render Cache module. This when used in conjunction with Entity Cache it should complement each other well as mentioned on the project page.

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