Fallback to render-based caching for blocks when node access modules are in use

Here's a patch that takes Contextual Links into account.

+++ b/blockcache_alter.module
@@ -110,3 +120,86 @@ function blockcache_alter_block_info_alter(&$blocks, $theme, $code_blocks) {
+    foreach ($results as $block) {
+      $blockcache_alter[$block->module . '-' . $block->delta] = $block;
+    }

So... Turns out this is problematic. I threw this in because the block ID given in hook_block_view_alter() isn't the actual block ID, it's module-delta. Unfortunately, module-delta isn't unique enough, so a bunch of block cache alter configurations are truncated/overwritten.

+++ b/blockcache_alter.module
@@ -110,3 +120,86 @@ function blockcache_alter_block_info_alter(&$blocks, $theme, $code_blocks) {
+      $blockcache_alter = blockcache_alter_load_cache_configurations();
+      if (isset($blockcache_alter[$block->bid])) {
+        $block->cache = $blockcache_alter[$block->bid]->cache;
+      }

Have to add the theme to the mix.

Ran some benchmarks and this patch is not looking very promising. On a real-world page with 3 menu blocks, 3 node blocks, and 4 view blocks--all set to cache globally--the performance gain with this patch is extremely minimal (between 0-3% improvement). Makes sense because all of the menu/view/nodeblock processing still occurs, we're just pulling rendered HTML from cache at the last minute. A full render array is generated as if there were no caching; the short circuit only happens right at drupal_render().

When I compared the same page under the same conditions, but with a core patch that allowed for standard block cache, there's no comparison: the performance gain was on the order of 30-50%.

AB results, for reference:

No block cache at all

Concurrency Level:      2
Time taken for tests:   108.145 seconds
Complete requests:      300
Total transferred:      21020900 bytes
HTML transferred:       20798900 bytes
Requests per second:    2.77 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       720.966 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       360.483 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          189.82 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        2    2   0.2      2       4
Processing:   607  718  75.2    701    1060
Waiting:      563  669  73.9    653    1015
Total:        609  720  75.1    703    1062

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    703
  66%    724
  75%    752
  80%    773
  90%    824
  95%    861
  98%    962
  99%    985
 100%   1062 (longest request)

Blocks cached via render cache (patch to Block Cache Alter)

Concurrency Level:      2
Time taken for tests:   104.409 seconds
Complete requests:      300
Total transferred:      21021390 bytes
HTML transferred:       20799390 bytes
Requests per second:    2.87 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       696.061 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       348.031 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          196.62 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        2    4   3.1      2      16
Processing:   591  692  78.1    667    1057
Waiting:      550  643  76.9    621    1002
Total:        593  696  78.1    672    1058

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    672
  66%    701
  75%    723
  80%    739
  90%    807
  95%    880
  98%    928
  99%    978
 100%   1058 (longest request)

Block cache enabled, Core Block module hacked to allow block caching

Concurrency Level:      2
Time taken for tests:   58.849 seconds
Complete requests:      300
Total transferred:      20022222 bytes
HTML transferred:       19800222 bytes
Requests per second:    5.10 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       392.327 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       196.164 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          332.26 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
              min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:        2    4   2.8      2      13
Processing:   306  387  71.3    366     722
Waiting:      270  351  70.0    329     678
Total:        308  391  71.7    369     727

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
  50%    369
  66%    389
  75%    405
  80%    417
  90%    518
  95%    553
  98%    584
  99%    653
 100%    727 (longest request)