Umbraco Published Event Performance - umbraco

Question

I have a comments type structure where users are able to post replies to an Article. (One article can have many discussion replies). When a user adds a reply, I want the parent articles last updated date to also change so that the article is placed at the top of the list when viewed from the frontend indicating that it has had recent activity. To achieve this, the comment is added through a custom controller and then I have used the ContentService Published event to update the parent though am finding my event to be a bit of a bottle neck and taking up to six seconds to run
public void OnApplicationStarted(UmbracoApplicationBase umbracoApplication, ApplicationContext applicationContext)
{
ContentService.Published += ContentServicePublished;
}
private void ContentServicePublished(IPublishingStrategy sender, PublishEventArgs<IContent> e)
{
foreach (var node in e.PublishedEntities)
{
//Handle updating the parent nodes last edited date to address ordering
if (node.ContentType.Alias == "DiscussionReply")
{
var contentService = new Umbraco.Core.Services.ContentService();
var parentNode = contentService.GetById(node.ParentId);
int intSiblings = parentNode.Children().Count() + 1;
if(parentNode.HasProperty("siblings"))
{
parentNode.SetValue("siblings", intSiblings);
contentService.SaveAndPublishWithStatus(parentNode, 0, false);
}
}
}
}
Is there anything obvious with this code that may be causing the performance issue?
Many thanks,

Answer 1

You should be using the Services Singleton for accessing the various services including ContentService.
One way to do so is to access the Services on ApplicationContext.Current like so:
var contentService = ApplicationContext.Current.Services.ContentService;
However, your bottleneck is going to be in retrieving the parent node and it's properties which requires multiple calls to the database. On top of that, you're retrieving the parent's children here:
int intSiblings = parentNode.Children().Count() + 1;
The better solution is to use the PublishedContent cache which doesn't hit the database at all and provides significantly superior performance.
If you're using a SurfaceController use it's Umbraco property (and you also have access to Services as well):
// After you've published the comment node:
var commentNode = Umbraco.TypedContent(commentNodeId);
// We already know this is a DiscussionReply node, no need to check.
int intSiblings = commentNode.Parent.Children.Count() + 1;
if (commentNode.Parent.HasProperty("siblings"))
{
// It's only now that we really need to grab the parent node from the ContentService so we can update it.
var parentNode = Services.ContentService.GetById(commentNode.ParentId);
parentNode.SetValue("siblings", intSiblings);
contentService.SaveAndPublishWithStatus(parentNode, 0, false);
}
If you're implementing a WebApi based on UmbracoApiController then the same Umbraco and Services properties are available to you there as well.

Answer 2

I'm using Umbraco 7.3.4 and here's my solution:
// Create a list of objects to be created or updated.
var newContentList = new List<MyCustomModel>() {
new MyCustomModel {Id: 1, Name: "Document 1", Attribute1: ...},
new MyCustomModel {Id: 2, Name: "Document 2", Attribute1: ...},
new MyCustomModel {Id: 3, Name: "Document 3", Attribute1: ...}
};
// Get old content from cache
var oldContentAsIPublishedContentList = (new UmbracoHelper(UmbracoContext.Current)).TypedContent(ParentId).Descendants("YourContentType").ToList();
// Get only modified content items
var modifiedItemIds = from x in oldContentAsIPublishedContentList
from y in newContentList
where x.Id == y.Id
&& (x.Name != y.Name || x.Attribute1 != y.Attribute1)
select x.Id;
// Get modified items as an IContent list.
var oldContentAsIContentList = ApplicationContext.Services.ContentService.GetByIds(modifiedItemIds).ToList();
// Create final content list.
var finalContentList= new List<IContent>();
// Update or insert items
foreach(var item in newContentList) {
// For each new content item, find an old IContent by the ID
// If the old IContent is found and the values are modified, add it to the finalContentList
// Otherwise, create a new instance using the API.
IContent content = oldContentAsIContentList.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Id == item.Id) ?? ApplicationContext.Services.ContentService.CreateContent(item.Name, ParentId, "YourContentType");
// Update content
content.Name = item.Name;
content.SetValue("Attribute1", item.Attribute1);
finalContentList.Add(content);
// The following code is required
content.ChangePublishedState(PublishedState.Published);
content.SortOrder = 1;
}
// if the finalContentList has some items, call the Sort method to commit and publish the changes
ApplicationContext.Services.ContentService.Sort(finalContentList);