Slow decision
For APC:
$iterator = new APCIterator('user', '#^article_3_#', APC_ITER_KEY);
foreach($iterator as $entry_name) {
apc_delete($entry_name);
}
For the accelerator:
foreach(eaccelerator_list_keys() as $name => $infos) {
if (preg_match('#^article_3_#', $name)) {
eaccelerator_rm($name);
}
}
For memcached, check out @rik's answer
Correct solution
A common solution for expiring multiple keys at once is a namespace. To complete them, you just need to change the namespace:
, "article_3_1", "article_3_2",.... :
$ns = apc_fetch('article_3_namespace');
apc_store($ns."_article_3_1", $value);
apc_store($ns."_article_3_2", $value);
:
$ns = apc_fetch('article_3_namespace');
apc_fetch($ns."_article_3_1");
, :
apc_inc('article_3_namespace');