Cache clear problem after style sheet changes

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Hi all,

It is a very common practice for the testers while testing any issue to clear cache, temporary files, when any styling changes are updated on the website.

And we can't expect the same action from the end users to see the changes.
Currently we are facing this issue in our projects.

So, what are the different ways or techniques we can follow while deployment to reflect the changes without clearing the cache or temporary files on browsers ?

Any help or suggestion will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tadit.

Posted 21-Aug-12 2:45am

Tadit Dash (ତଡିତ୍ କୁମାର ଦାଶ)

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Sandip.Nascar · Answer 1 · 2012-08-21T03:53:00

Solution 3

There is a way to do it automatically,

In Assembly, set the version number.

in code behind, get the assembly version

protected string getversion()
{
    return System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString();
}

In aspx,

<link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/test.css?<%= getversion(); %>" type="text/css" />

cheers

Posted 21-Aug-12 3:53am

Sandip.Nascar

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Tadit Dash (ତଡିତ୍ କୁମାର ଦାଶ) 21-Aug-12 10:24am

I thing this will solve our problem.
Let me implement this and come back to you.
And I will put some ratings after the implementation succeeds.

Thanks a lot Sandip.

Christian Graus · Answer 2 · 2012-08-21T02:54:00

Solution 1

If you really want end users to see the style changes quicker, change the name of the style sheet, so the browser knows it's a new one. Personally, once I release something, I expect that it works fine, and if end users look at the old style for a bit, I don't see a huge issue with that.

Your other option is to set 'cache-control: "no-cache, must-revalidate"'[^]

Posted 21-Aug-12 2:54am

Christian Graus

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Tadit Dash (ତଡିତ୍ କୁମାର ଦାଶ) 21-Aug-12 9:36am

Hi Christian,

Thanks for your reply.

FYI - Actually we can't let users see the old styles in our projects as we also fix bugs in different browsers and many functionality also depend on the changes, which client also complains.

1st attempt of renaming the files
---------------------------------
As we are working on a very big project, we have lots of pages.
So, if we will change the name of the style sheet, then we have to do this in every page, which is not possible in our projects as it will take a huge time and client will also not approve this.

2nd attempt of cache control
----------------------------
I am not able to get the concept.
Can you please elaborate in brief ?
Also if you can give one example of code how to do this, it would be helpful.

Thanks,
Tadit

Christian Graus 21-Aug-12 9:50am

Option 1 is clearly messy. Option 2 involves changing the headers in your response, so I don't know how messy it is, I just googled for you and that appears to be the only option, it forces the browser to check for an update right away. http://forums.asp.net/t/979853.aspx/1 seems to cover how this is done, it's pretty top level in your application. Either way, it seems messy

Sandip.Nascar · Answer 3 · 2012-08-21T03:25:00

Solution 2

The best technique is to use versioning to your css and js file.

<script type="text/javascript" src="../js/test.js?1.1.1.1" ></script>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/test.css?1.1.1.1." type="text/css" />

cheers

Posted 21-Aug-12 3:25am

Sandip.Nascar

Updated 21-Aug-12 3:26am

v2

Comments

Tadit Dash (ତଡିତ୍ କୁମାର ଦାଶ) 21-Aug-12 9:48am

As I have commented on the answer by Christian that we have many pages which use the same style sheet file.
So, if we will version the css and js files, we need to do the same in every page, which will take a huge time according our project architecture.