I usually end up implementing my own very small class that couples with a database table to create my own caching system.  It’s very easy to create one that way and it’s organized and has the extra benefits of not being files and so can be easier to maintain and access, be removed upon expiration with a simple query to the database.

That said, Symfony has a very thorough caching system, and other developers may have noticed an option called “cache:warmup”.  Of course, to warm up a cache usually refers to prepping the system and pre-populating the cache so the first visitors don’t get hit with a performance penalty because, well, they were the first poor shlubs to access a certain page that hadn’t been cached yet.  Kind of like trailblazers for the rest.

Anyway, I wanted to find out more, so I visited this site and found a very thorough explanation.

http://blog.whiteoctober.co.uk/2014/02/25/symfony2-cache-warmup-explained/

Sensio Labs, who is the company behind Symfony, has made an incredible tool, but I find their online resources aren’t nearly as thorough as Zend.  More real world examples ranging in complexity could easily quadruple their cookbook, but it’s needed.  With such a powerful and diverse PHP framework and so many tools, there is plenty of room to help build the community and create more common practices along with concrete examples.  To dig into Symfony, I suggest visiting their website at http://symfony.com/doc/current/cookbook/index.html.

Cache warming in Symfony.  Another mystery revealed!