As mentioned before, by default, the Redis server runs on the IP 127.0.0.1 and port 6379. So, to make a connection, we will use these details. Take a look at the following code:

$redisObject = new Redis();
if( !$redisObject->connect('127.0.0.1', 6379))
  die("Can't connect to Redis Server");

In the first line, we instantiated a Redis object by the name of redisObject, which is then used in the second line to connect to the Redis server. The host is the local IP address 127.0.0.1, and the port is 6379. The connect() method returns TRUE if the connection is successful; otherwise, it returns FALSE.

Now, we are connected to our Redis server. Let's save some data in the Redis database. For our example, we want to store some string data in the Redis database. The code is as follows:

//Use same code as above for connection.
//Save Data in to Redis database.
$rdisObject->set('packt_title', 'Packt Publishing');

//Lets get our data from database
echo $redisObject->get('packt_title');

The set method stores data into the current Redis database and takes two arguments: a key and a value. A key can be any unique name, and a value is what we need to store. So, our key is packt_title, and the value is Packt Publishing. The default database is always set to 0 (zero) unless explicitly set otherwise. So, the preceding set method will save our data to database 0 with the packt_title key.

Now, the get method is used to fetch data from the current database. It takes the key as the argument. So, the output of the preceding code will be our saved string data Packt Publishing.

Now, what about arrays or a set of data coming from the database? We can store them in several ways in Redis. Let's first try the normal strings way, as shown here:

//Use same connection code as above.

/* This $array can come from anywhere, either it is coming from database or user entered form data or an array defined in code */

$array = ['PHP 5.4', PHP 5.5, 'PHP 5.6', PHP 7.0];

//Json encode the array
$encoded = json_encode($array);

//Select redis database 1
$redisObj->select(1);

//store it in redis database 1
$redisObject->set('my_array', $encoded);

//Now lets fetch it
$data = $redisObject->get('my_array');

//Decode it to array
$decoded = json_decode($data, true);

print_r($decoded); 

The output of the preceding code will be the same array. For testing purposes, we can comment out the set method and check whether the get method fetches the data or not. Remember that in the preceding code, we stored the array as a json string, then fetched it as a json string, and decoded it to the array. This is because we used the methods that are available for the string datatype, and it is not possible to store arrays in the string datatype.

Also, we used the select method to select another database and use it instead of 0. This data will be stored in database 1 and can't be fetched if we are at database 0.

Redis management tools provide an easy way to manage Redis databases. These tools provide features so that every key can be checked and a cache can be cleared easily. One default tool comes with Redis, called Redis-cli, and we discussed it earlier. Now, let's discuss a visual tool that is great and easy to use, called Redis Desktop Manage (RDM). A screenshot of the main window of RDM looks like the following screenshot:

RDM provides the following features:

There are some other tools that can be used, but RDM and Redis-cli are the best and easiest to use.