In Redis, the OBJECT ENCODING command returns the internal encoding for the Redis object stored at the specified key.

Syntax

The syntax goes like this:

OBJECT ENCODING key

Where key is the key that you want to return the internal encoding from.

Example

Suppose we set a couple of keys:

MSET name "Bart" age 10

Result:

OK

We can use the OBJECT ENCODING command to check their internal encoding.

Here’s the first key:

OBJECT ENCODING name

Result:

"embstr"

This is an embedded string.

And here’s the other one:

OBJECT ENCODING age

Result:

"int"

This is a string that represents an integer.

Let’s try it with a list.

Create the list:

LPUSH pets "Dog" "Cat" "Mouse"

Result:

(integer) 3

Now let’s use OBJECT ENCODING to get the internal encoding:

OBJECT ENCODING pets

Result:

"quicklist"

See the Redis documentation for an overview of the different encoding methods used for the various data types in Redis.