LRU cache design

This is my simple sample c++ implementation for LRU cache, with the combination of hash(unordered_map), and list. Items on list have key to access map, and items on map have iterator of list to access list.

#include <list>
#include <unordered_map>
#include <assert.h>

using namespace std;

template <class KEY_T, class VAL_T> class LRUCache{
private:
        list< pair<KEY_T,VAL_T> > item_list;
        unordered_map<KEY_T, decltype(item_list.begin()) > item_map;
        size_t cache_size;
private:
        void clean(void){
                while(item_map.size()>cache_size){
                        auto last_it = item_list.end(); last_it --;
                        item_map.erase(last_it->first);
                        item_list.pop_back();
                }
        };
public:
        LRUCache(int cache_size_):cache_size(cache_size_){
                ;
        };

        void put(const KEY_T &key, const VAL_T &val){
                auto it = item_map.find(key);
                if(it != item_map.end()){
                        item_list.erase(it->second);
                        item_map.erase(it);
                }
                item_list.push_front(make_pair(key,val));
                item_map.insert(make_pair(key, item_list.begin()));
                clean();
        };
        bool exist(const KEY_T &key){
                return (item_map.count(key)>0);
        };
        VAL_T get(const KEY_T &key){
                assert(exist(key));
                auto it = item_map.find(key);
                item_list.splice(item_list.begin(), item_list, it->second);
                return it->second->second;
        };

};

A linked list + hashtable of pointers to the linked list nodes is the usual way to implement LRU caches. This gives O(1) operations (assuming a decent hash). Advantage of this (being O(1)): you can do a multithreaded version by just locking the whole structure. You don't have to worry about granular locking etc.

Briefly, the way it works:

On an access of a value, you move the corresponding node in the linked list to the head.

When you need to remove a value from the cache, you remove from the tail end.

When you add a value to cache, you just place it at the head of the linked list.

Thanks to doublep, here is site with a C++ implementation: Miscellaneous Container Templates.