Redis is a versatile key value that supports a variety of rich data structures such as List, Set, Sorted Set, Hash etc. - this means that values can be more than just a simple string. These data structures when combined, can be used to build powerful applications for use-cases ranging from caching (which is bread and butter for Redis), real-time processing, distributed work queues, leaderboards, session store, etc.

This two-part blog series will cover some of the Redis data structures with the help of a simple yet practical example: another TODO app! 😉 Instead of building a web-based front end interface (which is really not my cup of tea, to be honest!) I chose to keep it simple and provide a command-line interface (CLI). It is built in Go with the popular cobra library for CLI apps and uses Redis as the backend store.

As you go through this series, you will learn about:

• Common Redis data structures - this application makes use of HASH and SET
• Interacting with Redis using the go-redis client
• How to use the cobra library (which also powers CLI tools like docker, kubectl etc.)
• You can try out the todo app with a couple of different Redis options: Docker or Azure Redis Cache

I have split it up into two parts to keep things simple. Part one (this blog) will provide a quick overview of the app, installation, and setup (including Azure Redis Cache) and try it out. The second part will dive into the code and implementation details

The code is available on Github

Overview of the todo app

Here is a quick overview of what you can do with the todo CLI app. It's easy to figure this out using todo --help: the output is self-explanatory:

Yet another TODO app. Uses Go and Redis

Usage:
  todo [command]

Available Commands:
  create      create a todo with description
  delete      delete a todo
  help        Help about any command
  list        list all todos
  update      update todo description, status or both

Flags:
  -h, --help      help for todo
  -v, --version   version for todo

Use "todo [command] --help" for more information about a command.

You can create, list, update and delete todos (good old CRUD!)

• To create a todo, simply enter the description - for details, use todo create --help
• To list all the todos, simply use todo list. It's also possible to filter by status (completed or pending) - for details, use todo list --help

Here is an output from todo list:

+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
| ID |          DESCRIPTION           |   STATUS    |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
|  3 | push redis todo cli app code   | pending     |
|    | to github                      |             |
|  2 | write tutorial for redis todo  | in-progress |
|    | cli app                        |             |
|  1 | implement todo cli app         | completed   |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+

• You can update the description, status (or both) for a todo by specifying the todo id - for details, use todo update --help
• To delete a todo, just use todo delete along with it's id - for details, use todo delete --help

todo app installation

I am assuming you have Go installed

Start by cloning the repo:

git clone https://github.com/abhirockzz/redis-todo-cli-app
cd redis-todo-cli-app

Build the app and set the PATH variable

go build -o todo
export PATH=$(pwd):$PATH

To confirm, use todo --help

Before using the app, set up a Redis instance

Redis setup

The todos are stored in Redis. One of the quickest ways get a Redis instance is to just pull it's Docker image and start using it:

docker pull redis
docker run -d --name todo_redis -p 6379:6379 redis

You should now have Redis Docker container running in the background and to should be accessible on port 6379

To delete the container (not the image), simply use docker rm -f todo_redis

If you're using the Docker based setup, you can skip the rest and head to the next (final) section since the app uses localhost:6379 as default Redis host

If you already want to override this, simply set the REDIS_HOST environment variable, e.g.

export REDIS_HOST=myredis:6379

If your Redis instance is password protected, just set the REDIS_PASSWORD_REQUIRED environment variable to true and use REDIS_PASSWORD environment variable to specify the password, e.g.

export REDIS_HOST=my-secure-redis:6379
export REDIS_PASSWORD_REQUIRED=true
export REDIS_PASSWORD=foobarredis

Azure Redis Cache

Azure Cache for Redis is a managed offering in the cloud. It provides access to a secure, dedicated Redis cache which is hosted within Azure, and accessible to any application within or outside of Azure.

For the purposes of this blog, we will setup an Azure Redis Cache with a Basic tier which is a single node cache ideal for development/test and non-critical workloads. Please note that you also choose from Standard and Premium tiers which provide different features ranging from persistence, clustering, geo-replication etc.

You can use the Azure CLI to quickly setup an Azure Redis Cache instance with the az redis create command, e.g.

az redis create --location westus2 --name todo-redis --resource-group todo-app-group --sku Basic --vm-size c0

Checkout "Create an Azure Cache for Redis" for a step-by-step guide

Once that's done, you need the get the information required to connect to Azure Redis Cache instance i.e. host, port and access keys. This can be done using CLI as well, e.g.

//host and (SSL) port
az redis show --name todo-redis --resource-group todo-app-group --query [hostName,sslPort] --output tsv

//primary access key
az redis list-keys --name todo-redis --resource-group todo-app-group --query [primaryKey] --output tsv

Checkout "Get the hostname, ports, and keys for Azure Cache for Redis" for a step-by-step guide

Alright, now you can set the required environment variables with the info you just extracted, e.g.

//todo-redis is the name of the cache
export REDIS_HOST=todo-redis.redis.cache.windows.net:6380
export REDIS_PASSWORD_REQUIRED=true
export REDIS_PASSWORD=[primary access key]
export REDIS_SSL_REQUIRED=true

The application uses TLS 1.2 to connect to Redis over SSL - this is the recommended approach

You should be all set to try the app

CRUD some todos!

Start by creating a todo

todo create --description "write the todo cli app"

You should see this response

created todo! use 'todo list' to get your todos

Create a few more

todo create --description "write the tutorial for redis cli app using go"
todo create --description "push cli app code to github"
todo create --description "get some sleep"

List all your todos with todo list. You should see:

+----+--------------------------------+---------+
| ID |          DESCRIPTION           | STATUS  |
+----+--------------------------------+---------+
|  3 | push cli app code to github    | pending |
|  2 | write the tutorial for redis   | pending |
|    | cli app using go               |         |
|  1 | write the todo cli app         | pending |
|  4 | get some sleep                 | pending |
+----+--------------------------------+---------+

Update a few todos

todo update --id 1 --status completed
todo update --id 2 --status in-progress
todo update --id 4 --description "get some sleep NOW"

Listing the todos should give you the updated info:

+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
| ID |          DESCRIPTION           |   STATUS    |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
|  3 | push cli app code to github    | pending     |
|  2 | write the tutorial for redis   | in-progress |
|    | cli app using go               |             |
|  1 | write the todo cli app         | completed   |
|  4 | get some sleep NOW             | pending     |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+

List pending todos only:

todo list --status pending

You should get:

+----+-----------------------------+---------+
| ID |         DESCRIPTION         | STATUS  |
+----+-----------------------------+---------+
|  3 | push cli app code to github | pending |
|  4 | get some sleep NOW          | pending |
+----+-----------------------------+---------+

Let's delete todo #4 (who needs sleep!?)

todo delete --id 4

No more sleep required! (as per todo list)

+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
| ID |          DESCRIPTION           |   STATUS    |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+
|  3 | push cli app code to github    | pending     |
|  2 | write the tutorial for redis   | in-progress |
|    | cli app using go               |             |
|  1 | write the todo cli app         | completed   |
+----+--------------------------------+-------------+

Double check Redis

Let's confirm by peeking into the Redis data structures. You can use the redis-cli for this. If you're using the Azure Redis Cache, I would recommend using a really handy web based Redis console for this

Let's check the data structures which have been created. We use todo to name the data structures (implementation details in the next blog post), so we can use SCAN using this pattern

SCAN 0 COUNT 1000 MATCH todo*

the KEYS command is prohibited to due to performance concerns

You will see the following output:

1) "0"
2) 1) "todos-id-set"
   2) "todo:1"
   3) "todo:2"
   4) "todo:3"
   5) "todoid"

todos-id-set and todoid correspond to SET and STRING (counter) data types respectively. todo:1, todo:2 and todo:3 are the HASH data types which contain the todo details. Let's look at todo:1 (i.e. todo with id 1)

HGETALL todo:1

You should get the following response:

1) "status"
2) "pending"
3) "desc"
4) "write the todo cli app"

As an excercise, confirm the other todos and also peek into the SET and STRING counter data types

Alright! That concludes this blog post. Stay tuned for the second part, where we will explore the code and see how things work.