Make Wordpress Ajax calls work with global variables to reduce database queries - ajax

Question

I posted this earlier on wordpress.stackexchange.com. However, never got a reply. Hence, trying my luck here.
I am hereby providing a detailed description of what I need and what I have done for this issue of mine. I am open to any workable solution around what I have done or maybe new suggestions.
I need to make use of user data that is retrieved using the following:
$user_data = get_user_by('login', get_query_var('user_login'));
The above code uses the username passed as a query_var in the URL. All works until here.
I make use of the above code in several Ajax callbacks (handled by admin-ajax.php) on single page load. Since, the site is targeted as a high volume site. All these Ajax requests lead to several database query for the same data. So the obvious idea to save some database queries is to pass the data to a global variable like below:
$_GLOBALS['user_data'] = get_user_by('login', get_query_var('user_login'));
And then use the same in the Ajax callbacks. Here's problem. None of the Ajax callback functions see the global $user_data variable. Before you ask, yes I have declared the global inside callback as well.
So, the obvious answer would be: why not use wp_localize_script and pass the $user_data to the Ajax callback via javascript like bellow:
In PHP:
wp_localize_script('jquery', 'ajaxVars', array( 'ajaxurl' => admin_url('admin-ajax.php'), 'user_data' => $user_data));
In Javascript:
jQuery.ajax({
url: ajaxVars.ajaxurl,
type:'POST',
async: false,
cache: false,
timeout: 10000,
data: 'action=ajax_callback&user_data=' + ajaxVars.user_data,
success: function(value) {
alert(value);
},
error: function() {
alert(error);
}
});
However, this poses two questions:
Can an object that get_user_by('login', get_query_var('user_login')); returns be handled by wp_localize_script()?
If the answer to above question is yes, then would it not pose a security threat since the object would contain sensitive user information?
To overcome the global variable being not available to Ajax callbacks, I declared it directly in functions.php (without wrapping it inside a function). However, get_query_var('user_login') does not return any data when used directly inside functions.php making this futile exercise (You have to add it inside a function and call it via an action).
So, the question remains: how do I stop making $user_data = get_user_by('login', get_query_var('user_login')); calls for every Ajax request? Or is there a way I could get get_query_var('user_login') to work inside functions.php directly (without wrapping it inside a function) or a workaround?
Or maybe some completely new out of the box thinking?

Answer 1

All these Ajax requests lead to several database query for the same
data. So the obvious idea to save some database queries is to pass the
data to a global variable like below:
$_GLOBALS['user_data'] = get_user_by('login', get_query_var('user_login'));
And then use the same in the Ajax callbacks.
Each request that your application receives, AJAX or otherwise, lives completely in isolation: the code handling the requests does not share any state between them (besides whatever is persisted to a database). A global (or constant, or property, or variable, or anything) you define in one request will never be available to subsequent requests unless you store it somewhere.
There are a number of approaches to reducing the number of queries these requests are creating. One would be to retrieve the required user data on page load and pass it to subsequent requests. E.g.:
var user = 'someUser';
$.get('user-data.php?user=' + user, function(user_data) {
$.ajax('some-endpoint.php', {
type: 'POST',
data: { user: user_data },
success: function() { /* ... */ }
});
$.ajax('some-other-endpoint.php', {
type: 'POST',
data: { user: user_data },
success: function() { /* ... */ }
});
});
Alternatively, if it's the currently logged in user you're working with you can write their details to a JavaScript object on initial page load for use later.
var userData = <?php get_currentuserinfo(); echo json_encode($current_user); ?>;
Another option would be to ensure that the get_user_by results were being cached, either by Wordpress, MySQL or some other caching layer. That way it doesn't particularly matter how many times your code calls the method.
In general if lots of your endpoints are sharing functionality, you could probably stand to refactor some of that code.