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Read key-value pairs

To get the value for a given key, call the get() method of the KV binding on any KV namespace you have bound to your Worker code:

env.NAMESPACE.get(key);

The get() method returns a promise you can await on to get the value. If the key is not found, the promise will resolve with the literal value null.

Example

An example of reading a key from within a Worker:

export default {
  async fetch(request, env, ctx) {
    try {
      const value = await env.NAMESPACE.get("first-key");


      if (value === null) {
        return new Response("Value not found", { status: 404 });
      }
      return new Response(value);
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response(e.message, { status: 500 });
    }
  },
};

Reference

The following methods are provided to read from KV:

get() method

To get the value for a given key, call the get() method on any KV namespace you have bound to your Worker code:

env.NAMESPACE.get(key, type?, options?);

The get() method returns a promise you can await on to get the value. If the key is not found, the promise will resolve with the literal value null.

Parameters

  • key: string
    • The key of the KV pair.
  • type: "text" | "json" | "arrayBuffer" | "stream"
    • Optional. The type of the value to be returned. text is the default.
  • options: { cacheTtl: number, type: "text" | "json" | "arrayBuffer" | "stream" }
    • Optional. Object containing the cacheTtl and type properties. The cacheTtl property defines the length of time in seconds that a KV result is cached in the global network location it is accessed from (minimum: 60). The type property defines the type of the value to be returned.

Response

  • response: Promise<string | Object | ArrayBuffer | ReadableStream | null>
    • The value for the requested KV pair. The response type will depend on the type parameter provided for the get() command as follows:

The get() method may return stale values. If a given key has recently been read in a given location, writes or updates to the key made in other locations may take up to 60 seconds (or the duration of the cacheTtl) to display.

getWithMetadata() method

To get the value for a given key along with its metadata, call the getWithMetadata() method on any KV namespace you have bound to your Worker code:

env.NAMESPACE.getWithMetadata(key, type?, options?);

Metadata is a serializable value you append to each KV entry.

Parameters

  • key: string
    • The key of the KV pair.
  • type: "text" | "json" | "arrayBuffer" | "stream"
    • Optional. The type of the value to be returned. text is the default.
  • options: { cacheTtl: number, type: "text" | "json" | "arrayBuffer" | "stream" }
    • Optional. Object containing the cacheTtl and type properties. The cacheTtl property defines the length of time in seconds that a KV result is cached in the global network location it is accessed from (minimum: 60). The type property defines the type of the value to be returned.

Response

  • response: Promise<{ value: string | Object | ArrayBuffer | ReadableStream | null, metadata: string | null }>

    • An object containing the value and the metadata for the requested KV pair. The type of the value attribute will depend on the type parameter provided for the getWithMetadata() command as follows:

If there is no metadata associated with the requested key-value pair, null will be returned for metadata.

The getWithMetadata() method may return stale values. If a given key has recently been read in a given location, writes or updates to the key made in other locations may take up to 60 seconds (or the duration of the cacheTtl) to display.

Example

An example of reading a key with metadata from within a Worker:

export default {
  async fetch(request, env, ctx) {
    try {
      const { value, metadata } =
        await env.NAMESPACE.getWithMetadata("first-key");


      if (value === null) {
        return new Response("Value not found", { status: 404 });
      }
      return new Response(value);
    } catch (e) {
      return new Response(e.message, { status: 500 });
    }
  },
};

Guidance

Type parameter

For simple values, use the default text type which provides you with your value as a string. For convenience, a json type is also specified which will convert a JSON value into an object before returning the object to you. For large values, use stream to request a ReadableStream. For binary values, use arrayBuffer to request an ArrayBuffer.

For large values, the choice of type can have a noticeable effect on latency and CPU usage. For reference, the type can be ordered from fastest to slowest as stream, arrayBuffer, text, and json.

CacheTtl parameter

cacheTtl is a parameter that defines the length of time in seconds that a KV result is cached in the global network location it is accessed from.

Defining the length of time in seconds is useful for reducing cold read latency on keys that are read relatively infrequently. cacheTtl is useful if your data is write-once or write-rarely.

cacheTtl is not recommended if your data is updated often and you need to see updates shortly after they are written, because writes that happen from other global network locations will not be visible until the cached value expires.

The cacheTtl parameter must be an integer greater than or equal to 60, which is the default.

The effective cacheTtl of an already cached item can be reduced by getting it again with a lower cacheTtl. For example, if you did NAMESPACE.get(key, {cacheTtl: 86400}) but later realized that caching for 24 hours was too long, you could NAMESPACE.get(key, {cacheTtl: 300}) or even NAMESPACE.get(key) and it would check for newer data to respect the provided cacheTtl, which defaults to 60 seconds.

Other methods to access KV

You can read key-value pairs from the command line with Wrangler and from the API.

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