How to get started with Redis

Overview:

• What is redis?
• Install redis
• Get to know the cli
• Create simple C# console App using redis
• Production
• Keep learning

What is redis?

Redis is what we like to call an in-memory database that offers a ridicules read and write speed. But hold on I know what a database are, here is the thing Redis is just not any kind of database it’s a non-relational database, that stores its data sets with keys. Meaning that this type of databases goes in the NoSQL basket of databases. Since we no longer have tables and relations we have to manage our data some how Redis takes care of this by using data structures, as of this writing Redis supports strings, sets, lists, hashes and sorted sets.

Install redis

We are going to be using Linux, windows and mac have a slight different procedure but this guide can help getting started. First let’s move to the correct directory.

cd /usr/local/src

Now let’s fetch the latest stable code from redis.io

sudo wget http://download.redis.io/releases/redis-2.8.3.tar.gz

Let’s uncompress that tar

sudo tar -xzvf redis-2.8.3.tar.gz
cd redis-2.8.3

Now let’s go ahead and compile the source code

sudo make
sudo make PREFIX=/usr/local/redis-2.8.3 install

Now lets make a symbolic link that points /usr/local/redis to /usr/local/redis-2.8.3

sudo ln -s redis-2.8.3 /usr/local/redis

Let’s configure the terminal

echo 'export PATH=/usr/local/redis/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

Now let’s create the location of the actual database

mkdir ~/redis
touch ~/redis/redis.conf
vi ~/redis/redis.conf

Now lets set the configuration for Redis

# Daemonize Redis
    daemonize yes
# Log file
    logfile /home/dev/redis/redis.log
# Data folder
    dir /usr/local/redis

Getting to know the cli

Starting

redis-server ~/redis/redis.conf

Stopping

killall redis-server

Version

redis-server -v

Testing the CLI

redis-cli

Make sure everything is working properly

ping

Cache itemsSet the item

set bar "Hello bar";

Get the item

get bar

Exiting the cli

quit

Create simple C# console application using redis

By far one of the most popular clients to interact with Redis using C# is ServiceStack.Redis, also the code base is always getting update on their GitHub page.
Getting this to work on a Linux box can be a bit tricky start by adding nuggets to your mono develop then configure it with the proper Nuggets add inCertificates for nuggets Now just add in the package from servicestack.redis and let’s start coding

using System;
using ServiceStack.Redis;
using ServiceStack.Text;

namespace Helloredis
{
    class MainClass
    {
        public static void Main (string[] args)
        {
            using(var redis = new RedisClient())
            {
                var redisUsers = redis.As<Person>();

                var rick = new Person{id = redisUsers.GetNextSequence(), name = "Rick @ code with intent"};
                var becky = new Person{id = redisUsers.GetNextSequence(), name = "Becky @ becy.com"};

                redisUsers.Store(rick);
                redisUsers.Store(becky);

                var allThePeople = redisUsers.GetAll();

                Console.WriteLine (allThePeople.Dump());

            }
        }

        public class Person
        {
            public long id {get; set;}
            public string name {get; set;}
        }
    }
}

Production

If this database is going into production I would like to send you over to Redis.IO for best practice

Keep learning

If redis is your first NOSQL database, then i would suggest going over to try redis to get used to some of the commands