MVC4 View cache duration in config file?

Question

Is there a was to set the duration of caching in the web.config for MVC4 .net pages? I have :

[OutputCache(Duration = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["cache.eventPage"]), VaryByParam = "Id")]
public ActionResult....

Which will not compile because

An attribute argument must be a constant expression, typeof expression or array creation expression of an attribute parameter type

We have very spikey traffic and would like to be able to change this value very quickly with out pushing out a new build. Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can use OutputCache profiles; define a section in web.config

<system.web>
 <caching>
  <outputCacheSettings>
    <outputCacheProfiles>
       <add name="CacheProfile1" duration="10" />  <!--10 seconds -->
       <add name="CacheProfile2" duration="3600" /> <!--one hour-->
       <add name="CacheProfileNone" duration="0" /> <!--disabled-->
    </outputCacheProfiles>
  </outputCacheSettings>
 </caching>
</system.web>

Use it on your controller action methods via an attribute as you've done already. Just use the CacheProfile property.

[OutputCache(CacheProfile = "CacheProfile1",VaryByParam = "Id")]

You can create different profiles for each caching scenario that you have.

More info on caching at MSDN