Use Redis Transaction Blocks

Redis is an open-source, in-memory database used for caching, messaging, and other storage tasks that benefit from fast execution and low latency. The Redis database supports a high degree of control over parallel executions that allow you to fine-tune its performance.

This guide walks you through using Redis’s transaction blocks. Transaction blocks group Redis commands and execute them as single units. Doing so guarantees uninterrupted sequential execution of each set of commands. This ensures that all of the commands in a transaction block are executed, even in highly parallel environments.

Before You Begin

1. Familiarize yourself with our Getting Started with Linode guide and complete the steps for setting your Linode’s hostname and timezone.

2. This guide uses sudo wherever possible. Complete the sections of our Securing Your Server guide to create a standard user account, harden SSH access, and remove unnecessary network services.

3. Update your system.

   • On Debian and Ubuntu, use the following command:

     sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
     

   • On AlmaLinux, CentOS (8 or later), or Fedora, use the following command:

     sudo dnf upgrade
     

4. Follow the instructions in our How to Install and Configure Redis guide to installing a Redis server and command-line interface (CLI). Be sure to use the drop-down menu at the top of that page to select your Linux distribution and get the appropriate steps.

What Are Redis Transactions?

Redis Transactions are a group of commands that are executed collectively and sequentially. The benefits of executing commands as transaction blocks are to ensure the following:

• The sequence of commands is not interrupted, even by another Redis client
• The commands are executed as an atomic unit and the entire transaction block is processed collectively

Transactions are especially useful in environments with numerous clients, and where clients are making frequent transactions in parallel. Redis’s transaction blocks ensure that a given set of commands executes as a unit and in a predetermined order.

Transaction Blocks vs. Pipelines

Redis pipelining is another method used to optimize command execution in a highly parallel network. Pipelining in Redis allows clients to queue a series of commands and send them to the server simultaneously, rather than in multiple round trips.

It may seem like transaction blocks and pipelining serve similar purposes. However, each has a distinct goal and acts to optimize command execution in very different ways from the other. Some of the differences are:

• Pipelining is concerned primarily with network efficiency. It reduces the round-trip time for a series of commands by submitting them all in one request, rather than a series of requests each with its own response.

  Pipelining is useful for reducing latency and increasing the feasible number of operations per second.

• Transactions are concerned with the integrity of a group of commands. They ensure that the entirety of a designated group of commands gets executed sequentially and without interruption. This is in contrast to pipelines that may execute requests in alternation with requests sent from other clients.

  Transaction blocks are useful when you need to guarantee a collection of commands is processed as a unit and the commands are executed sequentially.

How to Run a Transaction Block

To start a transaction in Redis, use the following command in the Redis CLI:

MULTI

The MULTI command begins a new transaction block. Any subsequent commands you enter are queued in sequence. To end the queuing of commands and complete the transaction block, use the following command:

EXEC

The commands displayed below include a complete example of creating a transaction block with the MULTI and EXEC commands. It starts with the MULTI command to initiate a transaction block. Then it creates a new key with a value of 10 and increments that key’s value by one. The key is then reset to 8 and again increments the value by one. Finally, the EXEC command completes the block and executes the transaction.

MULTI
SET the_key 10
INCR the_key
SET the_key 8
INCR the_key
GET the_key
EXEC

Notice that, for each command within the block (between MULTI and EXEC), the client responds with QUEUED. Once you send the EXEC command, the server provides an appropriate response for each command within the transaction.

1) OK
2) (integer) 11
3) OK
4) (integer) 9
5) "9"

How to Handle Errors in a Transaction Block

When working with Redis transaction blocks, there are two kinds of errors that you may encounter. Based on when they occur, the errors can be categorized as follows:

• Errors before the EXEC command:

  These include errors related to syntax or related to server restrictions, like maximum memory. Although you can continue queuing commands after receiving one of these errors, the transaction block subsequently fails when you run EXEC.

  For example, the transaction below includes a typo for the GET command:

  MULTI
  SET new_key "alpha"
  GRT new_key
  

  (error) ERR unknown command `GRT`, with args beginning with: `new_key`,
      

  Disregarding the error and attempting to execute the transaction results in an error.

  EXEC
  

  (error) EXECABORT Transaction discarded because of previous errors.
      

  For this reason, you should cancel any transaction blocks that encounter errors during queuing. See the next section — How to Cancel a Transaction Block — for instructions on how to do so.

• Errors after the EXEC command:

  These are errors returned by the server in response to individual commands in the transaction. For example, you might receive such an error due to mismatched types:

  MULTI
  SET new_key "beta"
  LPOP new_key
  EXEC
  

  1) OK
  2) (error) WRONGTYPE Operation against a key holding the wrong kind of value
      

  Notice that the first command was executed successfully, which you can further verify using the GET command:

  GET new_key
  

  "beta"
      

How to Cancel a Transaction Block

A transaction can be canceled at any time before the EXEC command. To do so, use the DISCARD command.

The example below demonstrates that the key, another_key remains unchanged from its pre-transaction value:

SET another_key "gamma"
MULTI
SET another_key 2
INCR another_key
DISCARD
GET another_key

"gamma"

As mentioned above, the ability to cancel an in-progress transaction becomes especially handy if you encounter an error while queuing commands for a transaction.

Conclusion

Redis transaction execute a collection of commands and ensure that the command execution is not interrupted by another client. This guide covered creating transaction blocks, understanding common transaction errors, and canceling in-progress transactions.

You can learn more about Redis and how to get the most out of your Redis databases through our other guides in this series. These guides cover everything from connecting to a remote Redis server to working with the hash data type.

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Redis: Transactions
• Redis: Using Pipelining to Speedup Redis Queries