Introduction:

The Univar library essentially provides an all-in-one toolset for dealing with local storages in ASP.NET.

Here is a list of the main benefits it provides:

1. Strong typing and support for generic types.

2. Minimal syntax usage by sharing a sinlge interface.

3. Keyless encryption support for data exposed to the client(the key is auto generated from the client machine key).

4. Compression support for size constrained data storage types.

5. A JSON document based server side storage.

6. Enhanced manageability by promoting maintainable code.

7. Ability to manipulate data in a disconnected manner to reduce overhead on high latency storages.

8. Persistence of object properties in one line of code(based on page postback).

9. Interoperability amongst different ASP.NET storage types.

10. Support for child keys.

Usage:

Here is the code used to read/write to the cache:

Storage.Cache.Get("myKey");
Storage.Cache.Set("myKey", "SomeValue");

Declaring a cache variable can be done as follows:

static CacheStore<string> myCache = new CacheStore<string>("myCacheKey") { 
  LifeTime = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10), 
  IsSlidingExpiration = true,
  ...
};

Assigning and accessing a value can then simply be done like so:

myCache.Value = "some value";
var someValue = myCache.Value;

However several values can be stored under any store using child keys like so:

myValue.Set("someChildKey", DateTime.Now.ToString());
var myValue = myCache.Get("someChildKey");

A function can also be used to fetch the value the first time the store is accessed:

var myValue = myCache.Get("someChildKey", delegate
{
    return DateTime.Now.ToString(); // This will only be read once during the cache lifetime.
});

Supported Storage Types:

1. CacheStore
2. CookieStore
3. JsonDocStore
4. QueryStringStore
5. SessionStore

Those storages can all be limited by a specified scope like the user, page url, sessin, etc. or even a combination of those scopes.

The interesting thing is that they all inherit from a single interface. Here it is:

public interface IDataStore<T>
{
    HttpContext HttpContext { get; set; }
    Source Source { get; }
    string SourceKey { get; set; }
    object Data { get; set; }
    T DefaultValue { get; set; }
    string Key { get; }
    bool HasKey { get; }
    bool HasChildKey(string childKey);
    int ReadTimesAllowed { get; set; }
    bool SuppressReadErrors { get; set; }
    T Get<TKey>(TKey childKey);
    void Set<TKey>(TKey childKey, TimeSpan? lifeTime, T value);
    void Clear();
    List<string> Clear(bool includeChildren);
    List<string> Clear(Regex regexPattern);
    void Clear<TKey>(TKey childKey);
    T Value { get; set; }
    string ToString();
    string ToString(JsonEncoding encoder);
    TimeSpan CookieBasedUserIDLifetime { get; set; }
    void Disconnect();
    void Connect(bool saveChangesIfAny);
    bool IsConnected { get; }
    void SaveChanges();
    void SaveChanges(bool restoreConnection);
}

Dynamic Store:

The DynamicStore however goes even further by encompassing all the above stores into one. It has the ability to read/write to and from several storage types in a specified order such that if one fails the next one will automatically be used. Here is a typical declaration:

var myDynamicStore = new DynamicStore<string>("myKey", Source.Cache, Source.JsonDoc) { ... };

The JsonDoc store is a file based store which has the advantage of not being as volatile as the cache but can be much slower to read/write. In this example the JsonDoc store is mostly used for backup purposes and is only read during startup. However since all write operations are carried out on both stores everytime this might create some additional overhead.

Further Documentation:

We've only scratched the surface on what can be done here. I acknowledge the documentation is very sparse but there's a fair amount of comment already in the code already and I will gladly provide additional information upon request. So feel free let me know if there's anything in particular that interests you.