Redis To Go on Heroku

Gem Setup

The redis-rb client is the easiest way to access Redis from Ruby. Install redis-rb locally with sudo gem install redis.

Using from Rails

For Rails 2.3.3 and higher, update the config/environment.rb to include the redis gem.

config.gem 'redis' 

If using Rails 3, update the Gemfile:

gem 'redis'

Setup the Redis connection information for development in config/environments/development.rb

ENV["REDISTOGO_URL"] = 'redis://username:password@my.host:6789' 

Configure Redis in config/initializers/redis.rb

uri = URI.parse(ENV["REDISTOGO_URL"])
REDIS = Redis.new(:host => uri.host, :port => uri.port, :password => uri.password)

Test that it works in the console.

$ rails console
>> REDIS.set("foo", "bar")
"OK"
>> REDIS.get("foo")
"bar"

Using from Sinatra

In the configure block include:

configure do
  require 'redis'
  uri = URI.parse(ENV["REDISTOGO_URL"])
  REDIS = Redis.new(:host => uri.host, :port => uri.port, :password => uri.password)
end

Test that it works in the console.

$ irb -r myapp.rb
>> REDIS.set("foo", "bar")
"OK"
>> REDIS.get("foo")
"bar"

Deploying to Heroku

To use Redis To Go on Heroku, install the redistogo add-on:

$ heroku addons:add redistogo

Test that it works from the Heroku console:

$ heroku console
>> REDIS.set("answer", 42)
"OK"
>> REDIS.get("answer")
42