How to Clear Cache in Laravel: Tips and Tricks

Laravel is an open-source PHP framework used for building modern web applications. It is based on the popular Symphony framework and follows the model–view–controller (MVC) architectural pattern. Caching is a process to store copies of files in temporary storage and serve users on requests. It reduces the request processing time to enhance application performance.

This tutorial will help you to clear the cache in the Laravel application. You can clear the Laravel cache by using a command-line interface or by adding the PHP code to the application. Choose any one of the below methods to clear the cache in Larvel.

Clear Laravel Cache Using PHP Artisan

Log in to the system running your Laravel application and open a terminal. Then navigate to your Laravel application code. Here you can issue the commands to clear the cache as follows:

Clear All Cache

To clear the cache in Laravel using the PHP Artisan command-line interface, you can use the cache:clear command. This command removes all items from the cache, regardless of the cache driver being used.

• Here’s an example of how to use the `cache:clear` command to clear the Laravel cache:

  php artisan cache:clear 
  

  When you run the `cache:clear` command, you should see a message indicating that the cache was successfully cleared.

• If the Laravel application uses multiple caches, then you can also specify the caching store to clear. For example to clear all cache stored from the Redis server, type:

  php artisan cache:clear --store redis 
  

• You can also clear the specific items from the cache by defining the tags with the command:

  php artisan cache:clear --tags=tag1,tag2 
  

Clear Portion of Cache

Note that the `cache:clear` command is an administrative command, and it is not recommended for use in production environments. If you want to clear only a specific portion of the cache, you can use the `cache:forget` command to delete specific keys instead.

To use the `cache:forget` command, you can specify the key as an argument. For example:

php artisan cache:forget key 

Clear Route Cache

To clear the route cache of your Laravel application execute the following command from the shell.

php artisan route:clear

Clear Configuration Cache

You can use `config:clear` to clear the config cache of the Laravel application.

php artisan config:clear

Clear Compiled Views Cache

Also, you may need to clear compiled view files of your Laravel application. To clear compiled view files run the following command from the terminal.

php artisan view:clear

Clear Laravel Cache with PHP Programing

o clear the cache in Laravel, you can use the Cache facade or the cache helper function. These provide a unified interface for interacting with the various cache drivers, allowing you to store and retrieve data in a consistent manner regardless of the underlying storage mechanism.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to clear the cache in Laravel:

1. Import the Cache facade at the top of your PHP script.
   
   use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;

   1	use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Cache;

2. Use the `Cache::flush` method to clear the entire cache. This method removes all keys from the cache, regardless of the cache driver being used.
   Cache::flush();

   1	Cache::flush();

3. Use the Cache::forget method to delete a specific key from the cache. This method takes a key as an argument and removes the corresponding key-value pair from the cache.
   Cache::forget('key');

   1	Cache::forget('key');

That’s it! The cache is now cleared, and all keys have been removed.

Note that the `Cache::flush` method is an administrative command, and it is not recommended for use in production environments. If you want to clear only a specific portion of the cache, you can use the Cache::forget method to delete specific keys instead.

Conclusion

This tutorial describes flushing cache in the Laravel framework using the Artisan command line utility as well as programmatically. Clearing cache in Laravel is safe in all environments. Once the cache is cleared the application starts creating a new cache.