How do I check the expiration date on a memcached entry - memcached

Question

I'm running apache/php/memcached on ubuntu 12.04
The keys I am setting are persisting beyond their expiration. We are using the same code that worked with the memcached PAAS we are migrating from.
How do I confirm that the expiration is actually being set on a key?
If I telnet and get [mykey] it simply shows the value, not the expiration.

Answer 1

You can verify the expiration time of an item in memcached by running stats cachedump command. Cachedump require two numeric arguments; item index, and the number of items to display. Memcached will return a list of items with size (in bytes), and a unix timestamp.
Example telnet session
// Add something to cache
>> set apples 0 130 3
>> Foo
<< STORED
// List ITEM stats
>> stats items
<< STAT items:1:number 1
<< STAT items:1:age 7
<< STAT items:1:evicted 0
<< STAT items:1:evicted_nonzero 0
<< STAT items:1:evicted_time 0
<< STAT items:1:outofmemory 0
<< STAT items:1:tailrepairs 0
<< STAT items:1:reclaimed 0
<< STAT items:1:expired_unfetched 0
<< STAT items:1:evicted_unfetched 0
<< END
// Verify expiration time
>> stats cachedump 1 1
<< ITEM apples [3 b; 1393944062 s]
<< END
And 1393944062 => Tue, 04 Mar 2014 08:41:02 -0600