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UNLINK

Asynchronously deletes one or more keys.

Usage
UNLINK key ...
Complexity
O(1) for each key removed regardless of its size. Then the command does O(N) work in a different thread in order to reclaim memory, where N is the number of allocations the deleted objects where composed of.
Since
4.0.0
ACL Categories
@fast, @keyspace, @write
Command flags
WRITE, FAST

This command is very similar to DEL: it removes the specified keys. Just like DEL a key is ignored if it does not exist. However the command performs the actual memory reclaiming in a different thread, so it is not blocking, while DEL is. This is where the command name comes from: the command just unlinks the keys from the keyspace. The actual removal will happen later asynchronously.

Examples

127.0.0.1:6379> SET key1 "Hello"
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> SET key2 "World"
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> UNLINK key1 key2 key3
(integer) 2

Replies

RESP2

Integer reply: the number of keys that were unlinked.

RESP3

Integer reply: the number of keys that were unlinked.