WP Cache like Mod for PunBB which will make fully static PunBB pages (Page 1 of 2)

This would only be for guest users, correct?

PunBB (and indeed all forum software) relies on being dynamic more than Wordpress or any other blog software. For Wordpress, having comments refresh every hour isn't a big deal, since the main content is the posts: on the other hand, PunBB really needs posts done and shown in real time.
So yes, it would be possible to write such a mod: a mod could write files with the filename being the group ID, filename, and various parameters, for example. However, I'm not sure how useful it would be and how easy it would be to dynamically expire certain parts if they were to change.

Dynamically update? That's not a cache, that's how things already work. Caching the forum doesn't work. Been there, tried it, binned it.

I have a feeling you'd be putting a whole lot of load on the server if you're saving new cached files every other second. And if it's really such a busy forum, I'd be a bit worried about file locks too.

It can be done, but I doubt it would make alot of difference.

I don't think Wp Cache for WordPress puts any load on the blog. In fact it totally speedens up WordPress and hardly any load for the server as it makes static html pages. It caches the page not every second but when someone visits the page.

It may not make a difference for dedicated servers or for small forums but for bigger forums on shared hosting, it will save the day. Instead of 100 or 200 visitors, one can easily scale to a thousand simultaneous forum visitors on shared hosting due to minimum database queries.

I already do something similar but on a much smaller scale.
All the information on my portal page (Top posters, User Groups, Forum statistics and so on) is cached using Cache Lite http://pear.php.net/package/Cache_Lite
VERY easy to work with, no problems with it and it's been in use for over 9 months.

If anyone wants it I can post a snipet of the code I use but you can easily find samples on the Net.
EDIT: see sample and explanation here: http://phpnuke.org/modules.php?name=PHP … -lite.html
Oh, I also use XCache for that extra hoomph

Just ensure something like eAccelerator, APC or Xcache are installed on your PHP setup and you will get much the same benefit as designing something akin to WP Cache for punBB, with far less hassle. All are popular and common PHP caches.

8 queries is nothing. And it's still only one connection.

I understand what you mean, but what I'm referring to is the fact of: how does it update the cached data? By connecting to the db and updating the cache. So in theory, you are swapping a dynamically generated page for a dynamically updated cached page. As you can guess, the difference there would be, db wise?

Caching is designed to take the load off PHP itself, not the db. If you try to achieve both, you'll end up with an outdated cache.

Yes, but it all builds when there are a lot of simultaneous visitors on the forum. PunBB forum pages load very fast so the visitors would browse many pages in a shorter time than other forums. So there is a chance that there may be many simultaneous database connections to the database at some point of time and that is enough for the shared host to suspend the account or for the forum to go down with errors.

As I pointed out above, I don't think a Php Cache gives exactly the same benefit as a fully static cache like WP Cache for example would because the forum pages will still execute queries to the database as per my knowledge. If that was the case, WordPress people would use only one of them at a time. But so many are using WP Cache in addition to a Php cache. I don't think it is a hassle to design such a MOD for PunBB. It will remove the hassles for those who want to run a higher volume PuBB forum on a shared host with that max db connections restriction.

I think this problem was only for a previous version of XCache and WP Cache. As far as I know, WP Cache has no reported problems with other PHP Caches.

I don't get you on this. WP Cache (which caches for reducing db load) works well with PHP Caches (which cache for reducing php load) and they both play very well together on the same shared hosting with an updated (not outdated) cache system when a post or comment is new or edited.

I am already on a paid shared hosting and that is what we are discussing about. Please read the above replies. The queries don't eat up the bandwidth. They eat up the RAM (mostly) and CPU of the shared server. I already said that paid shared hosts have a limit of 30 to 50 simultaneous database connections which is main problem. Many have faced this problem of "maximum database connections exceeded" with PunBB too on paid shared hosting. They are many topics about it on this forum. I guess one of the main purposes and advantages of designing PunBB was to make it run smoothly on a paid shared hosting also even for a high volume and visitor forum. I think that out of all popular forum scripts only PunBB is so lightweight, that it can faciltiate a high volume forum on a paid shared hosting. And with such a full static page PunBB MOD, it would allow a few thousands of simultaneous visitors on a paid shared hosting imho. Please remember than a shared hosting is less than $10 monthly while a reasonable VPS is around $50/month  and dedicated is much more. Thanks.

Thanks Sirena. I will check that though I would'nt know what to do from it as I am not a programmer. I greatly hope that one of our PunBB geniuses on this forum decide to make such a static html cache MOD for PunBB. This PunBB forum is one of most helpful and active communities out there.

Indeed: without a database query, how would you know what group someone is in?