I'm currently studying Redis, and have the following case:
So what I have is a sorted set by google place id, for which all posts are sorted from recent to older.
The first page that is requested fetches posts < current timestamp.
When a cursor is sent to the backend, this cursor is a simple timestamp that indicates from where to fetch the next posts from the ZSET.
The query to retrieve posts by place id would be:
ZREVRANGEBYSCORE <gplaceId> <cur_timestamp> -INF WITHSCORES LIMIT <offset:timestamp as from where to fetch> <count:number of posts>
My question is what is the recommended way to clean up members of the ZSET.
Since I want to use Redis as a cache, I would prefer to limit the number of posts per place for example up until 50. When places get new posts when already 50 posts have been added to the set, I want to drop the last post from the set.
Of course I realise that I could make a manual check on every insert and perform operations as such, but I wonder if Redis has a recommended way of performing this cleanup. Alternatively I could create a scheduler for this, but I would prefer not having to do this.
Unfortunately Redis sorted set do not come with an out of the box feature for this. If sorted sets allowed a max size attribute with a configurable eviction strategy - you could have avoided some extra work.
See this related question:
How to specify Redis Sorted Set a fixed size?
In absence of such a feature, the two approaches you mentioned are right.
You can replace inserts with a transaction : insert, check size, delete if > 50
A thread that checks size of the set and trims it periodically
Related
I have following scenario:
Fetch array of numbers (from REDIS) conditionally
For each number do some async stuff (fetch something from DB based on number)
For each thing in result set from DB do another async stuff
Periodically repeat 1. 2. 3. because new numbers will be constantly added to REDIS structure.Those numbers represent unix timestamp in milliseconds so out of the box those numbers will always be sorted in time of addition
Conditionally means fetch those unix timestamp from REDIS that are less or equal to current unix timestamp in milliseconds(Date.now())
Question is what REDIS data type fit the most for this use case having in mind that this code will be scaled up to N instances, so N instances will share access to single REDIS instance. To equally share the load each instance will read for example first(oldest) 5 numbers from REDIS. Numbers are unique (adding same number should fail silently) so REDIS SET seems like a good choice but reading M first elements from REDIS set seems impossible.
To prevent two different instance of the code to read same numbers REDIS read operation should be atomic, it should read the numbers and delete them. If any async operation fail on specific number (steps 2. and 3.), numbers should be added again to REDIS to be handled again. They should be re-added back to the head not to the end to be handled again as soon as possible. As far as i know SADD would push it to the tail.
SMEMBERS key would read everything, it looks like a hammer to me. I would need to include some application logic to get first five than to check what is less or equal to Date.now() and then to delete those and to wrap somehow everything in single transaction. Besides that set cardinality can be huge.
SSCAN sounds interesting but i don't have any clue how it works in "scaled" environment like described above. Besides that, per REDIS docs: The SCAN family of commands only offer limited guarantees about the returned elements since the collection that we incrementally iterate can change during the iteration process. Like described above collection will be changed frequently
A more appropriate data structure would be the Sorted Set - members have a float score that is very suitable for storing a timestamp and you can perform range searches (i.e. anything less or equal a given value).
The relevant starting points are the ZADD, ZRANGEBYSCORE and ZREMRANGEBYSCORE commands.
To ensure the atomicity when reading and removing members, you can choose between the the following options: Redis transactions, Redis Lua script and in the next version (v4) a Redis module.
Transactions
Using transactions simply means doing the following code running on your instances:
MULTI
ZRANGEBYSCORE <keyname> -inf <now-timestamp>
ZREMRANGEBYSCORE <keyname> -inf <now-timestamp>
EXEC
Where <keyname> is your key's name and <now-timestamp> is the current time.
Lua script
A Lua script can be cached and runs embedded in the server, so in some cases it is a preferable approach. It is definitely the best approach for short snippets of atomic logic if you need flow control (remember that a MULTI transaction returns the values only after execution). Such a script would look as follows:
local r = redis.call('ZRANGEBYSCORE', KEYS[1], '-inf', ARGV[1])
redis.call('ZREMRANGEBYSCORE', KEYS[1], '-inf', ARGV[1])
return r
To run this, first cache it using SCRIPT LOAD and then call it with EVALSHA like so:
EVALSHA <script-sha> 1 <key-name> <now-timestamp>
Where <script-sha> is the sha1 of the script returned by SCRIPT LOAD.
Redis modules
In the near future, once v4 is GA you'll be able to write and use modules. Once this becomes a reality, you'll be able to use this module we've made that provides the ZPOP command and could be extended to cover this use case as well.
I am trying to insert time based records with multiple fields on the values (with TTL enabled).
For the multiple fields the best way to do it via Redis is using HSET:
HSET user:32 name "johns" timecreated "3333311232" address "somewhere"
I also try to read those values via time range:
for example return all history records (for example user 32) which was inserted in the last day:
so the best for that would be storing via ZADD using scores(this time I am losing the hash-map structure for easy retrieval):
ZADD user:32 3333311232 "name=johns,timecreated=3333311232,address=somewhere"
On the top of the things I want to add TTL for each record
Any idea how I could optimize my design?
I could split into two but that will requires two queries when reading:
ZADD user:32 3333311232 "user:32:3333311232"
HMSET user:32:3333311232 name “johns” timecreated “3333311232” address="somewhere"
than to retrieve ill need:
//some range
ZRANGEBYSCORE user:32 3333311232 333331123
result: 1389772850
now to get all information: HGETALL user:32:1389772850
What do you think?
Thank you,
ray.
The two methods you describe are the two common approaches. If you store the entire object in the ZSET, you would typically store it as a JSON string. If you don't need "random" access to the object, that's a valid approach.
I usually go for the other approach; a ZSET combined with hashes. the two queries are not a big deal. You could even abstract it away with a Lua script; see EVAL.
Regarding the TTL, while you cannot expire individual ZSET values, you could expire the hash, and use keyspace notifications to listen for the expired event, and remove the corresponding value from the ZSET.
Let me know if you need some more specifics.
For my application, I need an alphabetical index on a set with millions of rows.
When I use a sorted set, and give all members the same score, the result looks perfect.
Performance is also great, with a test set of 2 million rows, the last third does not perform noticably less than the first third of the set.
However, I need to query those results. For example, get the first (max) 100 items that start with "goo". I played around with zscan and sort, but it does not give me a working and performant result.
Since redis is very fast when inserting a new member to the sorted set, it must be technically possible to immediately (well, very quickly) go to the right memory location. I suppose redis uses some kind of quicksort mechanism to accomplish this.
But.. I don't seem to get the result when I just want to query the data, and not write to it.
We use replicated slaves for read actions, and we prefer the (default) read-only config switch. So creating a dummy key and deleting it afterward (however unelegant) is not really an option.
I'm stuck a bit, and I'm thinking about writing a ZLEX command in redis-server itself. Which I could use like this:
HELP "ZLEX" -> (ZLEX set score startswith)
-- Query the lexicographical index of a sorted set, supplying a 'startswith' string.
127.0.0.1:12345> ZLEX myset 0 goo LIMIT 0 100
1) goo
2) goof
3) goons
4) goozer
What are your thoughts? Am I missing something in the standard redis commands?
We're using Redis 2.8.4 x64 on Debian.
Kind regards, TW
Edits:
Note:
Related issue: indexing-using-redis-sorted-sets -> At least the name I gave to ZLEX seems to conform with Antirez' (Salvatore's) standards. As of 24-1-2014, I'm working on implementing ZLEX. It seems to be the easiest and most straight-forward solution for this use case, and Antirez could merge it into the main branch for everyone's benefit.
I've implemented ZLEX.
Here are the full specs.
You can grab the new functionality from here: github tw-bert
I also posted a pull request to Antirez here.
Kind regards, TW
Have you had a look at this ?
It can be useful depending on the length of the field by which you sort, this method requires b*(a^2) keys, where a is the length of the field , and b is amount of rows for this field.
I am learning Redis and using an existing app (e.g. converting pieces of it) for practice.
I'm really struggling to understand first IF and then (if applicable) HOW to use Redis in one particular use-case ... apologies if this is super basic, but I'm so new that I'm not even sure if I'm asking correctly :/
Scenario:
Images are received by a server and info like time_taken and resolution is saved in a database entry. Images are then associated (e.g. "belong_to") with one Event ... all very straight-forward for a RDBS.
I'd like to use a Redis to maintain a list of the 50 most-recently-uploaded image objects for each Event, to be delivered to the client when requested. I'm thinking that a Sorted Set might be appropriate, but here are my concerns:
First, I'm not sure if a Sorted Set can/should be used in this associative manner? Can it reference other objects in Redis? Or is there just a better way to do this altogether?
Secondly, I need the ability to delete elements that are greater than X minutes old. I know about the EXPIRE command for keys, but I can't use this because not all images need to expire at the same periodicity, etc.
This second part seems more like a query on a field, which makes me think that Redis cannot be used ... but then I've read that I could maybe use the Sorted Set score to store a timestamp and find "older than X" in that way.
Can someone provide come clarity on these two issues? Thank you very much!
UPDATE
Knowing that the amount of data I need to store for each image is small and will be delivered to the client's browser, can is there anything wrong with storing it in the member "field" of a sorted set?
For example Sorted Set => event:14:pictures <time_taken> "{id:3,url:/images/3.png,lat:22.8573}"
This saves the data I need and creates a rapidly-updatable list of the last X pictures for a given event with the ability to, if needed, identify pictures that are greater than X minutes old ...
First, I'm not sure if a Sorted Set can/should be used in this
associative manner? Can it reference other objects in Redis?
Why do you need to reference other objects? An event may have n image objects, each with a time_taken and image data; a sorted set is perfect for this. The image_id is the key, the score is time_taken, and the member is the image data as json/xml, whatever; you're good to go there.
Secondly, I need the ability to delete elements that are greater than
X minutes old
If you want to delete elements greater than X minutes old, use ZREMRANGEBYSCORE:
ZREMRANGEBYSCORE event:14:pictures -inf (currentTime - X minutes)
-inf is just another way of saying the oldest member without knowing the oldest members time, but for the top range you need to calculate it based on current time before using this command ( the above is just an example)
I am working on small application where I am using redis to hold my intermediate data. After inserting data, I need to reload my data in same order in which i have inserted.
I am using keys method to get all keys but the order of returned keys is not same as they were inserted.
You have to maintain order yourself, by keeping a separate list for inserted keys. So, instead of
SET foo, bar
you may do something like this:
SET foo, bar
RPUSH insert_order, foo
Then you can do
LRANGE insert_order, 0, 100
to get first 100 set fields.
If you want to track actual insertion (and not updates), you can use SETNX, for example. Also, you can use a sorted set instead of a list (as mentioned by #Leonid) Additionally, you can wrap the whole thing in Lua, so that the bookkeeping is hidden from the client code.
For indexing URL and getting the list by inserted order, you should use sorted set:
zadd <your_url_list_key> <inserted_time> <url>
Detail data for a single url should be stored in a different place. For example, use hash:
hset <your_url_data_key> <url> <url_data>
It's better if you don't store detail data on redis, so instead of using redis hash, you should save url detail data on mysql.
You can also md5(url) before indexing to reduce the size (then the full url value will be stored in url_data).
In my project, sorted set still works ok with about 3mil records (read & write frequently). But you should watch the hash size often, it will grow really fast.