Best practice to store List<T> in StackExchange.Redis

Question

I am trying to find best practice(efficient) way of storing set of List objects against ReportingDate key.

List could be serailised as Xml/DataContract or ProtoBuf....

And given some of the data could be big (for that slice of key):

• I was wondering if there is any of getting data from redis cache in IEnum/streamed fashion? Atm we using ProtoBuf.NET to have file based cache. And we retrieve data into mem in streamed fashion (we also have an option of selecting what props/fields we want in that T object as ProtoBuf allows us to do it)
• Is there any way can force (after some inactivity) certain part of the data to be offloaded from mem and back into file if it is not being used. But load it up again if it is called

Tnx

Answer 1

It sounds like you want a sorted set - see https://redis.io/topics/data-types#sorted-sets. You would use the date as the value, perhaps in epoch time (since it needs to be a number). SE.Redis supports all the operations you would expect to get ranges of values (either positional ranges - the first 20 records, etc; or absolute ranges bases on the value - all items between two dates expressed in the same unit). Look at the methods starting " SortedSet...".

The value can be binary, so protobuf-net is fine (you would serialize the value for each date separately). Just pass a byte[] as the value. You need to handle serialization separately to the redis library.

As for swapping data out: no. Redis has date-based expiration, but doesn't have hot and cold storage. It is either there, or it isn't. You could use scheduled tasks to purge or move data based on date ranges, again using any of the Z* (redis) or SortedSet* (SE.Redis) methods.

For the complete list of Z* operations, see: https://redis.io/commands#sorted_set. They should all be available in SE.Redis.