Delete keys from redis server using redis-cli

Question

I am trying to delete the KEYS using pattern from redis server but it is not getting deleted.

Sample Keys

1) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xa0\x01"
2) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\x98\x02"
3) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xb8\x02"
4) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x02\t!"
5) "flc_1310sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x02\t~"
6) "flc_1310sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xc0\x02"
7) "flc_-41sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xc5\x01"
8) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\x94\x03"
9) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xd3\x01"
10) "flc_77sandeep-pant-back.int.dev.mykronos.com_personality:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x0e\x03\x01SecondaryKe\xf9:\xac\xed\x00\x05w\x03\t\xee\x02"

Command

redis-cli KEYS *sandeep-pant* | xargs redis-cli DEL

Output

xargs: WARNING: a NUL character occurred in the input.  It cannot be passed through in the argument list.  Did you mean to use the --null option?
xargs: unmatched double quote; by default quotes are special to xargs unless you use the -0 option
(integer) 0

Solution 1

If you don't want to write bash script use this one-liner

redis-cli --scan --pattern "*sandeep-pant*" | sed -e 's/^/"/g' -e 's/$/"/g' | xargs -i redis-cli del {}

Explanation:

1. Gets the matched keys line by line
2. sed adds quotes to the beginning and end of each key
3. xargs deletes the records one by one.

{} is the marker where the key should be placed in the script

Solution 2

You should not use KEYS as it is a blocking operation, use SCAN instead. If you use glob pattern, surround it with quotes:

redis-cli --scan --pattern '*sandeep-pant*' | xargs -L 100 redis-cli del

You can use the -L 100 to batch the DEL ops with 100 keys each time.

Solution 3

Bash code:

for k in $(redis-cli -a password1 keys "*"); do
  echo "delete key '$k'";
  redis-cli -a password1 DEL $k;
done

Remove -a password1 if not need a password

Comments

[h0x91B]

* is a bash control character

[hardy_sandy]

I tried deleting keys using pattern and it is working. [root@dmc31 ~]# redis-cli SET key1 "Hello" OK [root@dmc31 ~]# redis-cli SET key2 "World" OK [root@dmc31 ~]# redis-cli KEYS *key* 1) "key2" 2) "key1" [root@dmc31 ~]# redis-cli KEYS *key* | xargs redis-cli DEL (integer) 2

[h0x91B]

Yeah, this one much better then mine.

[Andrew]

Ah thanks, resolved my issue. This used to work fine without the sed bits but stopped working on some keys even though they don't appear to have any strange quotes/encoding.

[Mike]

Thanks! I've been searching around for a fix for my xargs: unterminated quote issue and this solved it.