Compatibility

Relay is designed to be a drop-in replacement for PhpRedis and it’s API is identical.

PhpRedis and Relay (by default) will return false in the event that a key doesn’t exist, but also if a read error occurred. This makes it hard to distinguish the two return values.

$redis = new Redis;
$redis->get('i-do-not-exist'); // false

$redis->set('name', 'Picard');
$redis->hgetall('name'); // false (actually a Redis WRONGTYPE error)

PhpRedis compatibility can be disabled, causing Relay to

1. Return null when a key doesn’t exist, instead of false
2. Throw exceptions when an error occurs, instead of returning false

$relay = new Relay;
$relay->setOption(Relay::OPT_PHPREDIS_COMPATIBILITY, false);

$relay->get('i-do-not-exist'); // null

$relay->set('name', 'Picard');
$relay->hgetall('name'); // Relay\Exception: WRONGTYPE Operation against a key holding the wrong kind of value

It is wise to not store truthy/falsey values, such as null, false, true, 0, -1, [] and so on in Redis. Your future self and others will thank you.