• Atomic values are emitted verbatim
• A term A:B:... where all arguments are either atoms, strings or integers (no floats) is translated into a string "A:B:...". This is a common shorthand for representing Redis keys.
• A term Term as prolog is emitted as "\u0000T\u0000" followed by Term in canonical form.
• Any other term is emitted as write/1.

Reply is either a plain term (often a variable) or a term Value as Type. In the latter form, Type dictates how the Redis bulk reply is translated to Prolog. The default equals to auto, i.e., as a number of the content satisfies the Prolog number syntax and as an atom otherwise.

• status(Atom) Returned if the server replies with + Status. Atom is the textual value of Status converted to lower case, e.g., status(ok) or status(pong).
• nil This atom is returned for a NIL/NULL value. Note that if the reply is only nil, redis/3 fails. The nil value may be embedded inside lists or maps.
• A number Returned if the server replies an integer (":Int"), double (",Num") or big integer ("(Num")
• A string Returned on a bulk reply. Bulk replies are supposed to be in UTF-8 encoding. The the bulk reply starts with "\u0000T\u0000" it is supposed to be a Prolog term. Note that this intepretation means it is not possible to read arbitrary binary blobs.
• A list of replies. A list may also contain nil. If Reply as a whole would be nil the call fails.
• A list of pairs. This is returned for the redis version 3 protocol "%Map". Both the key and value respect the same rules as above.

Redis bulk replies are translated depending on the as Type as explained above.

string

string(Encoding)

Create a SWI-Prolog string object interpreting the blob as following Encoding. Encoding is a restricted set of SWI-Prolog's encodings: bytes (iso_latin_1), utf8 and text (the current locale translation).

atom

atom(Encoding)

As above, producing an atom.

codes

codes(Encoding)

As above, producing a list of integers (Unicode code points)

chars

chars(Encoding)

As above, producing a list of one-character atoms.

integer

float

rational

number

Interpret the bytes as a string representing a number. If the string does not represent a number of the requested type a type_error(Type, String) is raised.

tagged_integer

Same as integer, but demands the value to be between the Prolog flags min_tagged_integer and max_tagged_integer, allowing the value to be used as a dict key.

auto

Same as auto(atom, number)

auto(AsText, AsNumber)

If the bulk string confirms the syntax of AsNumber, convert the value to the requested numberical type. Else convert the value to text according to AsText. This is similar to the Prolog predicate name/2.

dict_key

Alias for auto(atom,tagged_integer). This allows the value to be used as a key for a SWI-Prolog dict.

pairs(AsKey, AsValue)

Convert a map or array of even length into pairs for which the key satisfies AsKey and the value AsValue. The pairs type can also be applied to a Redis array. In this case the array length must be even. This notably allows fetching a Redis hash as pairs using HGETALL using version 2 of the Redis protocol.

dict(AsKey, AsValue)

Similar to pairs(AsKey, AsValue), but convert the resulting pair list into a SWI-Prolog dict. AsKey must convert to a valid dict key, i.e., an atom or tagged integer. See dict_key.

dict(AsValue)

Shorthand for dict(dict_key, AsValue).

Here are some simple examples

?- redis(default, set(a, 42), X).
X = status("OK").
?- redis(default, get(a), X).
X = "42".
?- redis(default, get(a), X as integer).
X = 42.
?- redis(default, get(a), X as float).
X = 42.0.
?- redis(default, set(swipl:version, 8)).
true.
?- redis(default, incr(swipl:version), X).
X = 9.

Errors

redis_error(Code, String)