Release: Redis 1.2.0 - New persistence mode, sorted sets and more

Last week Redis has released a new stable version. Here are a couple of the new features included in Redis 1.2.0:

• Append Only File persistence mode. Simply put, Append Only File offers an a different solution to current snapshotting approach, one that can be considered a Details can be read ☞ here
• sorted set data type. Until now Redis supported (smart, binary safe) strings, lists and sets. Redis data types are described ☞ here
• support for an improved protocol that makes command fully binary safe
• Solaris support

and many more that can be found in the ☞ changelog.

Redis 1.2.0 is also introducing a couple of new commands:

• MSET and MSETNX: atomic multi-key set
• SRANDMEMEBER: return a random element from a Set
• RPOPPLPUSH: atomic remove from last element of list and push it to target list
• BLPOP and BRPOP: list blocking operations. These can transform Redis in a queue server with no polling needed (note: these do not appear on the changelog)

  Update: these new operations (as MULTI/EXEC mentioned below) are currently in the Git repository and will become available in Redis 2.0.

It is interesting to note the additions of these atomic operations. The unstable Redis branch also contains a MULTI/EXEC operation that would allow atomic execution of a set of commands (note while you might think of this as your DB BEGIN/COMMIT the semantics are a bit more complex. You can read more about Redis “transactions” in this ☞ thread).

Last, but not least, Redis 1.2.0 also includes a ton of performance improvements (you can always check these Redis benchmarks and the update to get an idea), so go an ☞ get it!