ExpireOnRestart is a simple Rails plugin that deletes a given set of files whenever the server starts up. The main use for this is to get rid of cached assets (such as javascripts and stylesheets) more easily without having to clean them up manually or via a Capistrano task whenever you deploy a new version of your app.
If you only want to expire cached javascripts and/or stylesheets, you don't have to do anything at all. Just use the regular caching syntax and ExpireOnRestart will handle the rest for you.
javascript_include_tag 'a', 'couple', 'of', 'javascript', 'files', :cache => true javascript_include_tag 'more', 'javascript', 'files', :cache => 'my_cache'
stylesheet_link_tag 'a', 'couple', 'of', 'stylesheet', 'files', :cache => true stylesheet_link_tag 'more', 'stylesheet', 'files', :cache => 'my_cache'
All javascript and stylesheet caches that are defined this way are automatically deleted when the server (re)starts.
If you want to manually expire files (for example if you create dynamic javascript/CSS and cache it), you can use the expire_on_restart method:
expire_on_restart 'my_file' expire_on_restart 'mulitple', 'files' expire_on_restart ['array', 'of', 'files]
All paths given to expire_on_restart are considered to be relative your application root aka Rails.root.
If you want to regenerate your caches right when you start up your server, this plugin is not for you!
Feel free to send me any feedback you might have and also feel free to fork away! ;-)
Copyright (c) 2009 Clemens Kofler clemens@railway.at, www.railway.at, released under the MIT license