Development

Developing RedisTimeSeries

Developing RedisTimeSeries involves setting up the development environment (which can be either Linux-based or macOS-based), building the RedisTimeSeries module, running tests and benchmarks, and debugging both the RedisTimeSeries module and its tests.

Cloning the git repository

By invoking the following command, the RedisTimeSeries module and its submodules are cloned:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/RedisTimeSeries/RedisTimeSeries.git

Working in an isolated environment

There are several reasons to develop in an isolated environment, like keeping your workstation clean, and developing for a different Linux distribution. The most general option for an isolated environment is a virtual machine (it's very easy to set one up using Vagrant). Docker is even a more agile solution, as it offers an almost instant solution:

ts=$(docker run -d -it -v $PWD:/build debian:bullseye bash)
docker exec -it $ts bash

Then, from within the container, cd /build and go on as usual. In this mode, all installations remain in the scope of the Docker container. Upon exiting the container, you can either re-invoke the container with the above docker exec or commit the state of the container to an image and re-invoke it on a later stage:

docker commit $ts ts1
docker stop $ts
ts=$(docker run -d -it -v $PWD:/build ts1 bash)
docker exec -it $ts bash

Installing prerequisites

To build and test RedisTimeSeries you needs to install several packages, depending on the underlying OS. Currently, we support the Ubuntu/Debian, CentOS, Fedora, and macOS.

If you have gnu make installed, you can execute

cd RedisTimeSeries
make setup

Alternatively, just invoke the following:

cd RedisTimeSeries
git submodule update --init --recursive    
./deps/readies/bin/getpy3
./system-setup.py

Note that system-setup.py will install various packages on your system using the native package manager and pip. This requires root permissions (i.e. sudo) on Linux.

If you prefer to avoid that, you can:

• Review system-setup.py and install packages manually,
• Use an isolated environment like explained above,
• Utilize a Python virtual environment, as Python installations known to be sensitive when not used in isolation.

Installing Redis

As a rule of thumb, you're better off running the latest Redis version.

If your OS has a Redis package, you can install it using the OS package manager.

Otherwise, you can invoke ./deps/readies/bin/getredis.

Getting help

make help provides a quick summary of the development features.

Building from source

make will build RedisTimeSeries.

Build artifacts are placed into bin/linux-x64-release (or similar, according to your platform and build options).

Use make clean to remove built artifacts. make clean ALL=1 will remove the entire binary artifacts directory.

Running Redis with RedisTimeSeries

The following will run redis and load the RedisTimeSeries module.

make run

You can open redis-cli in another terminal to interact with it.

Running tests

The module includes a basic set of unit tests and integration tests:

• C unit tests, located in src/tests, run by make unit_tests.
• Python integration tests (enabled by RLTest), located in tests/flow, run by make flow_tests.

One can run all tests by invoking make test. A single test can be run using the TEST parameter, e.g. make flow_test TEST=file:name.

Debugging

To build for debugging (enabling symbolic information and disabling optimization), run make DEBUG=1. You can the use make run DEBUG=1 to invoke gdb. In addition to the usual way to set breakpoints in gdb, it is possible to use the BB macro to set a breakpoint inside the RedisTimeSeries code. It will only have an effect when running under gdb.

Similarly, Python tests in a single-test mode, one can set a breakpoint by using the BB() function inside a test. This will invoke pudb.

The two methods can be combined: one can set a breakpoint within a flow test, and when reached, connect gdb to a redis-server process to debug the module.