You can do more elaborate grouping by setting up cache_id groups. This is accomplished by separating each sub-group with a vertical bar "|" in the cache_id value. You can have as many sub-groups as you like. You can think of cache groups like a directory heirarchy. For instance, a cache group of "a|b|c" could be thought of as the directory structure "/a/b/c/". clear_cache(null,"a|b|c") would be like removing the files "/a/b/c/*". clear_cache(null,"a|b") would be like removing the files "/a/b/*". If you specify a compile_id such as clear_cache(null,"a|b","foo") it is treated as an appended cache group "/a/b/c/foo/". If you specify a template name such as clear_cache("foo.tpl","a|b|c") then Smarty will attempt to remove "/a/b/c/foo.tpl". You CANNOT remove a specified template name under multiple cache groups such as "/a/b/*/foo.tpl", the cache grouping works left-to-right ONLY. You will need to group your templates under a single cache group heirarchy to be able to clear them as a group. Cache grouping should not be confused with your template directory heirarchy, the cache grouping has no knowledge of how your templates are structured. So for example, if you have a template structure like "themes/blue/index.tpl" and you want to be able to clear all the cache files for the "blue" theme, you will need to create a cache group structure that mimics your template file structure, such as display("themes/blue/index.tpl","themes|blue"), then clear them with clear_cache(null,"themes|blue"). caching = true; // clear all caches with "sports|basketball" as the first two cache_id groups $smarty->clear_cache(null,"sports|basketball"); // clear all caches with "sports" as the first cache_id group. This would // include "sports|basketball", or "sports|(anything)|(anything)|(anything)|..." $smarty->clear_cache(null,"sports"); // clear the foo.tpl cache file with "sports|basketball" as the cache_id $smarty->clear_cache("foo.tpl","sports|basketball"); $smarty->display('index.tpl',"sports|basketball"); ?> ]]>