How to check when an item in MemoryCache will expire?

c# caching memorycache
Mattias Lindberg picture Mattias Lindberg · Nov 13, 2015 · Viewed 20.5k times · Source

Is it possible to read the expiration time of an item in MemoryCache?

I'm using the .NET System.Runtime.Caching.MemoryCache to store my configuration information for 30 min before I reload it from the database. As part of a status page I would like to show how old a specific cache item is or when it will expire.

object config = LoadSomeStuffFromDatabase();
CacheItemPolicy cachePolicy = new CacheItemPolicy() { AbsoluteExpiration = DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(30) }; 
Cache.Add("MyConfigKey", config, cachePolicy);

// And now I want to do something like this :-)
DateTime dt = Cache.SomeMagicMethod("MyConfigKey");

Today I'm using a variable that is updated every time I reload the configuration. But it would be much nicer to read this information from the cache itself.

Answer

David Pine picture David Pine · Nov 13, 2015

I believe that this has already been answered:

How to get expiry date for cached item?

If that isn't what you're looking for, consider the following:

The API doesn't support getting the policy back from the retrieval of the cached item. Since you can cache any object, you could cache the policy in conjunction with the object and do some time based comparisons when you need to later access the object.

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