14.8.2.16 :cache

The :cache header argument controls the use of in-buffer caching of the results of evaluating code blocks. It can be used to avoid re-evaluating unchanged code blocks. Note that the :cache header argument will not attempt to cache results when the :session header argument is used, because the results of the code block execution may be stored in the session outside of the Org mode buffer. The :cache header argument can have one of two values: yes or no.

• no The default. No caching takes place, and the code block will be evaluated every time it is called.
• yes Every time the code block is run a SHA1 hash of the code and arguments passed to the block will be generated. This hash is packed into the #+RESULTS: line and will be checked on subsequent executions of the code block. If the code block has not changed since the last time it was evaluated, it will not be re-evaluated.

Code block caches notice if the value of a variable argument to the code block has changed. If this is the case, the cache is invalidated and the code block is re-run. In the following example, caller will not be re-run unless the results of random have changed since it was last run.

 #+NAME: random
 #+BEGIN_SRC R :cache yes
 runif(1)
 #+END_SRC

 #+RESULTS[a2a72cd647ad44515fab62e144796432793d68e1]: random
 0.4659510825295

 #+NAME: caller
 #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp :var x=random :cache yes
 x
 #+END_SRC

 #+RESULTS[bec9c8724e397d5df3b696502df3ed7892fc4f5f]: caller
 0.254227238707244