Agree completely, this is not where I want Redis should go, I was just tinkeing with the idea.
Antirez: are you considering a Sorted Map of some kind with a way to iterate over it? (ZSET is almost it, but semantics are a little different and Redis does not have iterators, at least not exposed to the protocol). With SQLite4 a Redis Cluster with such a type could serve as the underlying storage engine, basically creating an infinitely scalable database.
BTW - kudos on Redis, I LOVE the clean C code. I must note that in the process of hacking on Thredis I couldn't help noticing there are many "cultural" similarities between SQLite and Redis, e.g. fondness of Tcl, integers as strings, etc.
True, but not quite. The first thing zrange does is look for the starting point, which is an approximately O(log(N)) for a skiplist (which is how it's implemented). An iterator's next() operation should be O(1). If I need to iterate over a gazillion elements, it would make a huge difference. Or course you could zrange chunks, and it would be more efficient, but what's wrong with a simple START and NEXT semantic?
BUT this is all a moot point - a Sorted Set is not the type of structure that something like SQLite4 needs anyway. The keys should be sorted lexicographically, not by score. I think a Skip List fits the bill perfectly, and Redis already contains an implementation of it (as part of Sorted Sets), why not expose it as a standalone type?
Antirez: are you considering a Sorted Map of some kind with a way to iterate over it? (ZSET is almost it, but semantics are a little different and Redis does not have iterators, at least not exposed to the protocol). With SQLite4 a Redis Cluster with such a type could serve as the underlying storage engine, basically creating an infinitely scalable database.
BTW - kudos on Redis, I LOVE the clean C code. I must note that in the process of hacking on Thredis I couldn't help noticing there are many "cultural" similarities between SQLite and Redis, e.g. fondness of Tcl, integers as strings, etc.