In Redis, the GET command returns the value of a given key. If the key doesn’t exist, it returns nil.

An error is returned if the value stored at key is not a string.

Syntax

GET key

Where key is the key for whose value we want returned.

Example

Suppose we set a key/value pair:

SET type "dog"

In this case, type the key and "dog" is its value.

Now that we’ve set the type key, we can use the GET command to get its value:

GET type

Result:

"dog"

As expected, the value is returned.

When the Key Doesn’t Exist

If the key doesn’t exist, we get nil. Here’s an example to demonstrate:

GET oops

Result:

(nil)

There’s no oops key, and so nil was returned.

Key/value pairs can expire (if they’ve been assigned an expire time), so if you get a null result when trying to get the value of a key that you are almost certain exists, it could be that it has expired. Or it could be that it was deleted.

Since Redis 6.2.0, there’s also a GETDEL command that gets the key and then immediately deletes it.