Redis is an open source, advanced key-value store. It is often referred to as a data structure server since keys can contain strings, hashes, lists, sets, and sorted sets.
The Redis configuration for your application is stored in the app/config/database.php file. Within this file, you will see a redis array containing the Redis servers used by your application:
'redis' => array(
'default' => array('host' => '127.0.0.1', 'port' => 6379),
),
The default server configuration should suffice for development. However, you are free to modify this array based on your environment. Simply give each Redis server a name, and specify the host and port used by the server.
You may get a Redis instance by calling the Redis::connection method:
$redis = Redis::connection();
This will give you an instance of the default Redis server. You may pass the server name to the connection method to get a specific server as defined in your Redis configuration:
$redis = Redis::connection('other');
Once you have an instance of the Redis client, we may issue any of the Redis commands to the instance. Laravel uses magic methods to pass the commands to the Redis server:
$redis->set('name', 'Taylor');
$name = $redis->get('name');
$values = $redis->lrange('names', 5, 10);
Notice the arguments to the command are simply passed into the magic method. Of course, you are not required to use the magic methods, you may also pass commands to the server using the command method:
$values = $redis->command('lrange', array(5, 10));
When you are simply executing commands against the default connection, just use static magic methods on the Redis class:
Redis::set('name', 'Taylor');
$name = Redis::get('name');
$values = Redis::lrange('names', 5, 10);
Note: Redis cache and session drivers are included with Laravel.