What are some common pitfalls to avoid when implementing a caching strategy with APC in PHP scripts?

One common pitfall to avoid when implementing a caching strategy with APC in PHP scripts is not properly checking if the cached data exists before trying to retrieve it. This can lead to errors if the data is not found in the cache. To solve this issue, always check if the data exists in the cache before attempting to retrieve it.

// Check if data exists in cache before retrieving it
$key = 'my_data_key';
$data = apc_fetch($key);

if($data === false) {
    // Data not found in cache, retrieve it and store in cache
    $data = fetchDataFromDatabase();
    apc_store($key, $data);
}

// Use the cached data
echo $data;