Spring @Cachable updating data

Question

example from : SpringSource

@Cacheable(value = "vets")
public Collection<Vet> findVets() throws DataAccessException {
    return vetRepository.findAll();
}

How does findVets() work exactly ?

For the first time, it takes the data from vetRepository and saves the result in cache. But what happens if a new vet is inserted in the database - does the cache update (out of the box behavior) ? If not, can we configure it to update ?

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EDIT:

But what happens if the DB is updated from an external source (e.g. an application which uses the same DB) ?

Answer 1

@CachePut("vets")    
public void save(Vet vet) {..}

You have to tell the cache that an object is stale. If data change without using your service methods then, of course, you would have a problem. You can, however, clear the whole cache with

@CacheEvict(value = "vets", allEntries = true)    
public void clearCache() {..}

It depends on the Caching Provider though. If another app updates the database without notifying your app, but it uses the same cache it, then the other app would probably update the cache too.