Memcache::decrement Decrement item's value intMemcache::decrement stringkey intvalue Memcache::decrement decrements value of the item by value. Similarly to Memcache::increment, current value of the item is being converted to numerical and after that value is substracted. Parameter value is optional. It's default is 1. New item's value will not be less than zero. Do not use Memcache::decrement with item, which was stored compressed, because consequent call to Memcache::get will fail. Also you can use memcache_decrement function. See example below. connect('memcache_host', 11211); /* decrement item by 3 */ $new_value = $memcache_obj->decrement('test_item', 3); ?> ]]> Memcache::decrement does not create an item if it didn't exist. Memcache::decrement returns item's new value on success or &false; on failure. See also Memcache::increment, Memcache::replace.