Key Commands

delete / unlink

r.delete("a", "b", "c")     # synchronous delete, returns count
r.unlink("a", "b", "c")     # async delete (non-blocking), returns count

Tip

Prefer unlink for large keys — it deletes in the background without blocking the server.

exists

r.exists("key")              # 1 if exists, 0 if not
r.exists("a", "b", "c")     # returns count of existing keys

expire / pexpire / expireat

r.expire("key", 60)         # expire in 60 seconds
r.pexpire("key", 5000)      # expire in 5000 milliseconds
r.expireat("key", 1700000000) # expire at Unix timestamp

ttl / pttl / persist

r.ttl("key")                 # seconds remaining, -1 if no expiry, -2 if missing
r.pttl("key")                # milliseconds remaining
r.persist("key")             # remove expiry

rename

r.rename("old", "new")       # rename key (error if old doesn't exist)

type

r.type("key")                # 'string', 'list', 'set', 'zset', 'hash'

keys / scan

r.keys("user:*")             # all matching keys (avoid in production)

Warning

keys blocks the server and scans all keys. Use scan for production.

cursor, keys = r.scan(0, match_pattern="user:*", count=100)
while cursor != "0":
    cursor, more_keys = r.scan(cursor, match_pattern="user:*", count=100)
    keys.extend(more_keys)

Note

Unlike redis-py, the cursor is returned as a string ("0" when done), not an integer.

dump / randomkey

r.dump("key")                # serialized representation (bytes)
r.randomkey()                # a random key from the database