Build Your Own Redis with C/C++

Introduction

• Why build Redis? The knowledge required is broader and deeper than usual application-level development. It’s a good way to level up your skills (mainly network programming and data structures).
• Why from scratch? A quote from Richard Feynman: “What I cannot create, I do not understand”. Human understandings are filled with holes aka “things I don’t know I don’t know”. Building from scratch is a way to ensure your understanding is complete.
• Why C? C is widely used in system programming and infrastructure software. Learn how C is used in real projects, with straightforward C code. No prior C/C++ experience is required.
• Why a book? The Redis project is a complex software system built with lots of effort, which can be harder to grasp for beginners. The book breaks down the core concepts into easy-to-digest steps.

Table of Contents

Part 1. Getting Started

1. Introduction
2. Introduction to Sockets
3. Hello Server/Client
4. Protocol Parsing
5. The Event Loop and Nonblocking IO
6. The Event Loop Implementation
7. Basic Server: get, set, del

Part 2. Essential Topics

8. Data Structure: Hashtables
9. Data Serialization
10. The AVL Tree: Implementation and Testing
11. The AVL Tree and the Sorted Set
12. The Event Loop and Timers
13. The Heap Data Structure and the TTL
14. The Thread Pool and Asynchronous Tasks

Appendixes

Source code: https://build-your-own.org/redis/src.tgz.

PDF/EPUB and Paperback Editions

The book is available for purchase.

Recommended Reading

I have curated a list of books that are highly relevant for people who intend to DIY their own Redis.

	Beej’s Guide to Network Programming. [Amazon] [Web] A comprehensive guide and reference to network programming. It’s a great supplement for coding your own networked apps, as the Redis book doesn’t cover all the details of socket programming.
	The Linux Programming Interface by Michael Kerrisk. [Amazon] [Web] The socket API is only a subset of the Linux API interface. You will probably need to become familiar with the other parts, such as IOs, threads and processes, signals, and etc, if you are developing apps for Linux.
	The C Programming Language by K&R. [Amazon] Are you scared of C, but still want to follow the project? No problem. This classic book is great for picking up C quickly, whether you are a beginner or an experienced developer.