ReJSON - a JSON data type for Redis

ReJSON is a Redis module that implements ECMA-404 The JSON Data Interchange Standard as a native data type. It allows storing, updating and fetching JSON values from Redis keys (documents).

Primary features:

Full support of the JSON standard
JSONPath-like syntax for selecting elements inside documents
Documents are stored as binary data in a tree structure, allowing fast access to sub-elements
Typed atomic operations for all JSON values types

ReJSON is developed with <3 at Redis Labs. The source code is available at: https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/ReJSON

ReJSON with redis-cli

Building the module

Linux Ubuntu 16.04

Requirements:

The ReJSON repository: git clone https://github.com/RedisLabsModules/rejson.git
The build-essential package: apt-get install build-essential

To build the module, run make in the project's directory.

Congratulations! You can find the compiled module library at src/rejson.so.

MacOSX

To build the module, run make in the project's directory.

Congratulations! You can find the compiled module library at src/rejson.so.

Loading the module to Redis

Requirements:

Redis v4.0 or above

We recommend you have Redis load the module during startup by adding the following to your redis.conf file:

loadmodule /path/to/module/rejson.so

In the line above replace /path/to/module/rejson.so with the actual path to the module's library. Alternatively, you can have Redis load the module using the following command line argument syntax:

~/$ redis-server --loadmodule /path/to/module/rejson.so

Lastly, you can also use the MODULE LOAD command. Note, however, that MODULE LOAD is a dangerous command and may be blocked/deprecated in the future due to security considerations.

Once the module has been loaded successfully, the Redis log should have lines similar to:

...
1877:M 23 Dec 02:02:59.725 # <ReJSON> JSON data type for Redis - v1.0.0 [encver 0]
1877:M 23 Dec 02:02:59.725 * Module 'ReJSON' loaded from <redacted>/src/rejson.so
...

Using ReJSON

Before using ReJSON, you should familiarize yourself with its commands and syntax as detailed in the commands reference document. However, to quickly get started just review this section and get:

A Redis server running the module (see building and loading for instructions)
Any Redis or ReJSON client

With `redis-cli`

This example will use redis-cli as the Redis client. The first ReJSON command to try out is JSON.SET, which sets a Redis key with a JSON value. All JSON values can be used, for example a string:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.SET foo . '"bar"'
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET foo
"\"bar\""
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.TYPE foo .
string

JSON.GET and JSON.TYPE do literally that regardless of the value's type, but you should really check out JSON.GET prettifying powers. Note how the commands are given the period character, i.e. .. This is the path to the value in the ReJSON data type (in this case it just means the root). A couple more string operations:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.STRLEN foo .
3
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.STRAPPEND foo . '"baz"'
6
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET foo
"\"barbaz\""

JSON.STRLEN tells you the length of the string, and you can append another string to it with JSON.STRAPPEND. Numbers can be incremented and multiplied:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.SET num . 0
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.NUMINCRBY num . 1
"1"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.NUMINCRBY num . 1.5
"2.5"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.NUMINCRBY num . -0.75
"1.75"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.NUMMULTBY num . 24
"42"

Of course, a more interesting example would involve an array or maybe an object:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.SET amoreinterestingexample . '[ true, { "answer": 42 }, null ]'
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET amoreinterestingexample
"[true,{\"answer\":42},null]"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET amoreinterestingexample [1].answer
"42"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.DEL amoreinterestingexample [-1]
1
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET amoreinterestingexample
"[true,{\"answer\":42}]"

The handy JSON.DEL command deletes anything you tell it to. Arrays can be manipulated with a dedicated subset of ReJSON commands:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.SET arr . []
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.ARRAPPEND arr . 0
(integer) 1
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET arr
"[0]"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.ARRINSERT arr . 0 -2 -1
(integer) 3
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET arr
"[-2,-1,0]"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.ARRTRIM arr . 1 1
1
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.GET arr
"[-1]"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.ARRPOP arr
"-1"
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.ARRPOP arr
(nil)

And objects have their own commands too:

127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.SET obj . '{"name":"Leonard Cohen","lastSeen":1478476800,"loggedOut": true}'
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.OBJLEN obj .
(integer) 3
127.0.0.1:6379> JSON.OBJKEYS obj .
1) "name"
2) "lastSeen"
3) "loggedOut"

With any other client

Unless your Redis client already supports Redis modules (unlikely) or ReJSON specifically (even more unlikely), you should be okay using its ability to send raw Redis commands. Depending on your client of choice, the exact method for doing that may vary.

Python example

This code snippet shows how to use ReJSON with raw Redis commands from Python with redis-py:

import redis
import json

data = {
    'foo': 'bar'
}

r = redis.StrictRedis()
r.execute_command('JSON.SET', 'doc', '.', json.dumps(data))
reply = json.loads(r.execute_command('JSON.GET', 'doc'))

Client libraries

Some languages have client libraries that provide support for ReJSON's commands:

Project	Language	License	Author	URL
iorejson	Node.js	MIT	Evan Huang @evanhuang8	git npm
JReJSON	Java	BSD-2-Clause	Redis Labs	git
rejson-py	Python	BSD-2-Clause	Redis Labs	git pypi