This is the 5 minute tour to get started with Spring AMQP.

Prerequisites: install and run the RabbitMQ broker (http://www.rabbitmq.com/download.html). Then grab the spring-rabbit JAR and all its dependencies - the easiest way to do that is to declare a dependency in your build tool, e.g. for Maven:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.amqp</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-rabbit</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.0.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

ConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory();

AmqpAdmin admin = new RabbitAdmin(connectionFactory);
admin.declareQueue(new Queue("myqueue"));

AmqpTemplate template = new RabbitTemplate(connectionFactory);
template.convertAndSend("myqueue", "foo");

String foo = (String) template.receiveAndConvert("myqueue");

ApplicationContext context = new GenericXmlApplicationContext("classpath:/rabbit-context.xml");
AmqpTemplate template = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class);

template.convertAndSend("myqueue", "foo");

String foo = (String) template.receiveAndConvert("myqueue");

<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:rabbit="http://www.springframework.org/schema/rabbit"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/rabbit
                           http://www.springframework.org/schema/rabbit/spring-rabbit-1.0.xsd
                           http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
                           http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">

<rabbit:connection-factory id="connectionFactory"/>

<rabbit:template id="amqpTemplate" connection-factory="connectionFactory"/>

<rabbit:admin connection-factory="connectionFactory"/>

<rabbit:queue name="myqueue"/>

</beans>

ApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(RabbitConfiguration.class);
AmqpTemplate template = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class);

template.convertAndSend("myqueue", "foo");

String foo = (String) template.receiveAndConvert("myqueue");

@Configuration
public class RabbitConfiguration {

  @Bean
  public ConnectionFactory connectionFactory() {
    CachingConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory("localhost");
    return connectionFactory;
  }

  @Bean
  public AmqpAdmin amqpAdmin() {
    return new RabbitAdmin(connectionFactory());
  }

  @Bean
  public RabbitTemplate rabbitTemplate() {
    return new RabbitTemplate(connectionFactory());
  }

  @Bean
  public Queue myQueue() {
    return new Queue("myqueue");
  }

}

Spring AMQP consists of a handful of modules, each represented by a JAR in the distribution. These modules are: spring-amqp, spring-rabbit and spring-erlang. The 'spring-amqp' module contains the org.springframework.amqp.core package. Within that package, you will find the classes that represent the core AMQP "model". Our intention is to provide generic abstractions that do not rely on any particular AMQP broker implementation or client library. End user code will be more portable across vendor implementations as it can be developed against the abstraction layer only. These abstractions are then used implemented by broker-specific modules, such as 'spring-rabbit'. For the 1.0 release there is only a RabbitMQ implementation however the abstractions have been validated in .NET using Apache Qpid in addition to RabbitMQ. Since AMQP operates at the protocol level in principle the RabbitMQ client can be used with any broker that supports the same protocol version, but we do not test any other brokers at present.

The overview here assumes that you are already familiar with the basics of the AMQP specification already. If you are not, then have a look at the resources listed in Part IV, “Other Resources”

public class Message {

    private final MessageProperties messageProperties;

    private final byte[] body;

    public Message(byte[] body, MessageProperties messageProperties) {
        this.body = body;
        this.messageProperties = messageProperties;
    }

    public byte[] getBody() {
        return this.body;
    }

    public MessageProperties getMessageProperties() {
        return this.messageProperties;
}

public interface Exchange {

    String getName();

    String getExchangeType();

    boolean isDurable();

    boolean isAutoDelete();

    Map<String, Object> getArguments();

}

public class Queue  {

    private final String name;

    private volatile boolean durable;

    private volatile boolean exclusive;

    private volatile boolean autoDelete;

    private volatile Map<String, Object> arguments;

    /**
     * The queue is durable, non-exclusive and non auto-delete.
     *
     * @param name the name of the queue.
     */
    public Queue(String name) {
        this(name, true, false, false);
    }

    // Getters and Setters omitted for brevity

new Binding(someQueue, someDirectExchange, "foo.bar")

new Binding(someQueue, someTopicExchange, "foo.*")

new Binding(someQueue, someFanoutExchange)

Binding b = BindingBuilder.bind(someQueue).to(someTopicExchange).with("foo.*");

The AmqpTemplate is also defined within the core package. As one of the main components involved in actual AMQP messaging, it is discussed in detail in its own section (see Section 2.3, “AmqpTemplate”).

Whereas the AMQP model we described in the previous section is generic and applicable to all implementations, when we get into the management of resources, the details are specific to the broker implementation. Therefore, in this section, we will be focusing on code that exists only within our "spring-rabbit" module since at this point, RabbitMQ is the only supported implementation.

The central component for managing a connection to the RabbitMQ broker is the ConnectionFactory interface. The responsibility of a ConnectionFactory implementation is to provide an instance of org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.connection.Connection which is a wrapper for com.rabbitmq.client.Connection. The only concrete implementation we provide is CachingConnectionFactory which establishes a single connection proxy that can be shared by the application. Sharing of the connection is possible since the "unit of work" for messaging with AMQP is actually a "channel" (in some ways, this is similar to the relationship between a Connection and a Session in JMS). As you can imagine, the connection instance provides a createChannel method. The CachingConnectionFactory implementation supports caching of those channels, and it maintains separate caches for channels based on whether they are transactional or not. When creating an instance of CachingConnectionFactory, the 'hostname' can be provided via the constructor. The 'username' and 'password' properties should be provided as well. If you would like to configure the size of the channel cache (the default is 1), you could call the setChannelCacheSize() method here as well.

CachingConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory("somehost");
connectionFactory.setUsername("guest");
connectionFactory.setPassword("guest");

Connection connection = connectionFactory.createConnection();

When using XML, the configuration might look like this:

<bean id="connectionFactory"
      class="org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.connection.CachingConnectionFactory">
    <constructor-arg value="somehost"/>
    <property name="username" value="guest"/>
    <property name="password" value="guest"/>
</bean>

A ConnectionFactory can be created quickly and conveniently using the rabbit namespace:

<rabbit:connection-factory
    id="connectionFactory"/>

In most cases this will be preferable since the framework can choose the best defaults for you. The created instance will be a CachingConnectionFactory. Keep in mind that the default cache size for channels is 1. If you want more channels to be cached set a larger value via the 'channelCacheSize' property. In XML it would look like this:

<bean id="connectionFactory"
      class="org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.connection.CachingConnectionFactory">
    <constructor-arg value="somehost"/>
    <property name="username" value="guest"/>
    <property name="password" value="guest"/>
    <property name="channelCacheSize" value="25"/>
</bean>

And with the namespace you can just add the 'channel-cache-size' attribute:

<rabbit:connection-factory
    id="connectionFactory" channel-cache-size="25"/>

Host and port attributes can be provided using the namespace

<rabbit:connection-factory
    id="connectionFactory" host="somehost" port="5672" />

Alternatively, if running in a clustered environment, use the addresses attribute.

<rabbit:connection-factory
    id="connectionFactory" addresses="host1:5672,host2:5672" />

As with many other high-level abstractions provided by the Spring Framework and related projects, Spring AMQP provides a "template" that plays a central role. The interface that defines the main operations is called AmqpTemplate. Those operations cover the general behavior for sending and receiving Messages. In other words, they are not unique to any implementation, hence the "AMQP" in the name. On the other hand, there are implementations of that interface that are tied to implementations of the AMQP protocol. Unlike JMS, which is an interface-level API itself, AMQP is a wire-level protocol. The implementations of that protocol provide their own client libraries, so each implementation of the template interface will depend on a particular client library. Currently, there is only a single implementation: RabbitTemplate. In the examples that follow, you will often see usage of an "AmqpTemplate", but when you look at the configuration examples, or any code excerpts where the template is instantiated and/or setters are invoked, you will see the implementation type (e.g. "RabbitTemplate").

As mentioned above, the AmqpTemplate interface defines all of the basic operations for sending and receiving Messages. We will explore Message sending and reception, respectively, in the two sections that follow.

When sending a Message, one can use any of the following methods:

void send(Message message) throws AmqpException;

void send(String routingKey, Message message) throws AmqpException;

void send(String exchange, String routingKey, Message message) throws AmqpException;

We can begin our discussion with the last method listed above since it is actually the most explicit. It allows an AMQP Exchange name to be provided at runtime along with a routing key. The last parameter is the callback that is responsible for actual creating of the Message instance. An example of using this method to send a Message might look this this:

amqpTemplate.send("marketData.topic", "quotes.nasdaq.FOO", new Message("12.34".getBytes(), someProperties));

The "exchange" property can be set on the template itself if you plan to use that template instance to send to the same exchange most or all of the time. In such cases, the second method listed above may be used instead. The following example is functionally equivalent to the previous one:

amqpTemplate.setExchange("marketData.topic");
amqpTemplate.send("quotes.nasdaq.FOO", new Message("12.34".getBytes(), someProperties));

If both the "exchange" and "routingKey" properties are set on the template, then the method accepting only the Message may be used:

amqpTemplate.setExchange("marketData.topic");
amqpTemplate.setRoutingKey("quotes.nasdaq.FOO");
amqpTemplate.send(new Message("12.34".getBytes(), someProperties));

A better way of thinking about the exchange and routing key properties is that the explicit method parameters will always override the template's default values. In fact, even if you do not explicitly set those properties on the template, there are always default values in place. In both cases, the default is an empty String, but that is actually a sensible default. As far as the routing key is concerned, it's not always necessary in the first place (e.g. a Fanout Exchange). Furthermore, a Queue may be bound to an Exchange with an empty String. Those are both legitimate scenarios for reliance on the default empty String value for the routing key property of the template. As far as the Exchange name is concerned, the empty String is quite commonly used because the AMQP specification defines the "default Exchange" as having no name. Since all Queues are automatically bound to that default Exchange (which is a Direct Exchange) using their name as the binding value, that second method above can be used for simple point-to-point Messaging to any Queue through the default Exchange. Simply provide the queue name as the "routingKey" - either by providing the method parameter at runtime:

RabbitTemplate template = new RabbitTemplate(); // using default no-name Exchange
template.send("queue.helloWorld", new Message("Hello World".getBytes(), someProperties));

Or, if you prefer to create a template that will be used for publishing primarily or exclusively to a single Queue, the following is perfectly reasonable:

RabbitTemplate template = new RabbitTemplate(); // using default no-name Exchange
template.setRoutingKey("queue.helloWorld"); // but we'll always send to this Queue
template.send(new Message("Hello World".getBytes(), someProperties));

Message reception is always a bit more complicated than sending. The reason is that there are two ways to receive a Message. The simpler option is to poll for a single Message at a time with a synchronous, blocking method call. The more complicated yet more common approach is to register a listener that will receive Messages on-demand, asynchronously. We will look at an example of each approach in the next two sub-sections.

Message receive() throws AmqpException;

Message receive(String queueName) throws AmqpException;

Object receiveAndConvert() throws AmqpException;

Object receiveAndConvert(String queueName) throws AmqpException;

public interface MessageListener {

    void onMessage(Message message);

}

public interface ChannelAwareMessageListener {

    void onMessage(Message message, Channel channel) throws Exception;

}

MessageListener listener = new MessageListenerAdapter(somePojo);

SimpleMessageListenerContainer container = new SimpleMessageListenerContainer();
container.setConnectionFactory(rabbitConnectionFactory);
container.setQueueNames("some.queue");
container.setMessageListener(new MessageListenerAdapter(somePojo));

<rabbit:listener-container connection-factory="rabbitConnectionFactory">
    <rabbit:listener queues="some.queue" ref="somePojo" method="handle"/>
</rabbit:listener-container>

@Configuration
public class ExampleAmqpConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public MessageListenerContainer messageListenerContainer() {
        SimpleMessageListenerContainer container = new SimpleMessageListenerContainer();
        container.setConnectionFactory(rabbitConnectionFactory());
        container.setQueueName("some.queue");
        container.setMessageListener(exampleListener());
        return container;
    }

    @Bean
    public ConnectionFactory rabbitConnectionFactory() {
        CachingConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory("localhost");
        connectionFactory.setUsername("guest");
        connectionFactory.setPassword("guest");
        return connectionFactory;
    }

    @Bean
    public MessageListener exampleListener() {
        return new MessageListener() {
            public void onMessage(Message message) {
                System.out.println("received: " + message);
            }
        };
    }
}

The AmqpTemplate also defines several methods for sending and receiving Messages that will delegate to a MessageConverter. The MessageConverter itself is quite straightforward. It provides a single method for each direction: one for converting to a Message and another for converting from a Message. Notice that when converting to a Message, you may also provide properties in addition to the object. The "object" parameter typically corresponds to the Message body.

public interface MessageConverter {

    Message toMessage(Object object, MessageProperties messageProperties)
            throws MessageConversionException;

    Object fromMessage(Message message) throws MessageConversionException;

}

The relevant Message-sending methods on the AmqpTemplate are listed below. They are simpler than the methods we discussed previously because they do not require the Message instance. Instead, the MessageConverter is responsible for "creating" each Message by converting the provided object to the byte array for the Message body and then adding any provided MessageProperties.

void convertAndSend(Object message) throws AmqpException;

void convertAndSend(String routingKey, Object message) throws AmqpException;

void convertAndSend(String exchange, String routingKey, Object message) throws AmqpException;

void convertAndSend(Object message, MessagePostProcessor messagePostProcessor) throws AmqpException;

void convertAndSend(String routingKey, Object message, MessagePostProcessor messagePostProcessor)
        throws AmqpException;

void convertAndSend(String exchange, String routingKey, Object message,
        MessagePostProcessor messagePostProcessor) throws AmqpException;

On the receiving side, there are only two methods: one that accepts the queue name and one that relies on the template's "queue" property having been set.

Object receiveAndConvert() throws AmqpException;

Object receiveAndConvert(String queueName) throws AmqpException;

<bean class="org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.core.RabbitTemplate">
    <property name="connectionFactory" ref="rabbitConnectionFactory"/>
    <property name="messageConverter">
        <bean class="org.springframework.amqp.support.converter.JsonMessageConverter">
            <!-- if necessary, override the DefaultClassMapper -->
            <property name="classMapper" ref="customClassMapper"/>
        </bean>
    </property>
</bean>

<bean class="org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.core.RabbitTemplate">
    <property name="connectionFactory" ref="rabbitConnectionFactory"/>
    <property name="messageConverter">
        <bean class="org.springframework.amqp.support.converter.MarshallingMessageConverter">
            <constructor-arg ref="someImplemenationOfMarshallerAndUnmarshaller"/>
        </bean>
    </property>
</bean>

The AmqpTemplate also provides a variety of sendAndReceive methods that accept the same argument options that you have seen above for the one-way send operations (exchange, routingKey, and Message). Those methods are quite useful for request/reply scenarios since they handle the configuration of the necessary "reply-to" property before sending and can listen for the reply message on an exclusive Queue that is created internally for that purpose.

Similar request/reply methods are also available where the MessageConverter is applied to both the request and reply. Those methods are named convertSendAndReceive. See the Javadoc of AmqpTemplate for more detail.

By default, a new temporary queue is used for each reply. However, a single reply queue can be configured on the template, which allows you to set arguments on that queue (such as 'ha_args="all"' for mirrored queues). In this case, however, you must also provide a <reply-listener/> sub element. This element provides a listener container for the reply queue, with the template being the listener. All of the Section 2.11, “Message Listener Container Configuration” attributes allowed on a <listener-container/> are allowed on the element, except for connection-factory and message-converter, which are inherited from the template's configuration.

<rabbit:template id="amqpTemplate"
        connection-factory="connectionFactory" reply-queue="replies">
    <rabbit:reply-listener />
</rabbit:template>

While the container and template share a connection factory, they do not share a channel and therefore requests and replies are not performed within the same transaction (if transactional).

The AMQP specification describes how the protocol can be used to configure Queues, Exchanges and Bindings on the broker. These operations which are portable from the 0.8 specification and higher are present in the AmqpAdmin interface in the org.springframework.amqp.core package. The RabbitMQ implementation of that class is RabbitAdmin located in the org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.core package.

The AmqpAdmin interface is based on using the Spring AMQP domain abstractions and is shown below:

public interface AmqpAdmin {

    // Exchange Operations

    void declareExchange(Exchange exchange);

    void deleteExchange(String exchangeName);

    // Queue Operations

    Queue declareQueue();

    void declareQueue(Queue queue);

    void deleteQueue(String queueName);

    void deleteQueue(String queueName, boolean unused, boolean empty);

    void purgeQueue(String queueName, boolean noWait);

    // Binding Operations

    void declareBinding(Binding binding);

}

The no-arg declareQueue() method defines a queue on the broker whose name is automatically generated. The additional properties of this auto-generated queue are exclusive=true, autoDelete=true, and durable=false.

The RabbitMQ implementation of this interface is RabbitAdmin which when configured using Spring XML would look like this:

<rabbit:connection-factory id="connectionFactory"/>

<rabbit:admin id="amqpAdmin" connection-factory="connectionFactory"/>

The RabbitAdmin implementation does automatic lazy declaration of Queues, Exchanges and Bindings declared in the same ApplicationContext. These components will be declared as son as a Connection is opened to the broker. There are some namespace features that make this very convenient, e.g. in the Stocks sample application we have:

<rabbit:queue id="tradeQueue" />

<rabbit:queue id="marketDataQueue" />

<fanout-exchange name="broadcast.responses" xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/rabbit">
  <bindings>
    <binding queue="tradeQueue" />
  </bindings>
</fanout-exchange>

<topic-exchange name="app.stock.marketdata" xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/rabbit">
  <bindings>
    <binding queue="marketDataQueue" pattern="${stocks.quote.pattern}" />
  </bindings>
</topic-exchange>

In the example above we are using anonymous Queues (actually internally just Queues with names generated by the framework, not by the broker) and refer to them by ID. We can also declare Queues with explicit names, which also serve as identifiers for their bean definitions in the context. E.g.

<rabbit:queue name="stocks.trade.queue"/>

Queues can be configured with additional arguments, for example, 'x-message-ttl' or 'x-ha-policy'. Using the namespace support, they are provided in the form of a Map of argument name/argument value pairs, using the <rabbit:queue-arguments> element.

<rabbit:queue name="withArguments">
	<rabbit:queue-arguments>
		<entry key="x-ha-policy" value="all" />
	</rabbit:queue-arguments>
</rabbit:queue>

By default, the arguments are assumed to be strings. For arguments of other types, the type needs to be provided.

<rabbit:queue name="withArguments">
	<rabbit:queue-arguments value-type="java.lang.Long">
		<entry key="x-message-ttl" value="100" />
	</rabbit:queue-arguments>
</rabbit:queue>

When providing arguments of mixed types, the type is provided for each entry element:

<rabbit:queue name="withArguments">
	<rabbit:queue-arguments>
		<entry key="x-message-ttl">
			<value type="java.lang.Long">100</value>
		</entry>
		<entry key="x-ha-policy" value="all" />
	</rabbit:queue-arguments>
</rabbit:queue>

With Spring Framework 3.2 and later, this can be declared a little more succinctly:

<rabbit:queue name="withArguments">
	<rabbit:queue-arguments>
		<entry key="x-message-ttl" value="100" value-type="java.lang.Long" />
		<entry key="x-ha-policy" value="all" />
	</rabbit:queue-arguments>
</rabbit:queue>

To see how to use Java to configure the AMQP infrastructure, look at the Stock sample application, where there is the @Configuration class AbstractStockRabbitConfiguration which in turn has RabbitClientConfiguration and RabbitServerConfiguration subclasses. The code for AbstractStockRabbitConfiguration is shown below

@Configuration
public abstract class AbstractStockAppRabbitConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public ConnectionFactory connectionFactory() {
        CachingConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory("localhost");
        connectionFactory.setUsername("guest");
        connectionFactory.setPassword("guest");
        return connectionFactory;
    }

    @Bean
    public RabbitTemplate rabbitTemplate() {
        RabbitTemplate template = new RabbitTemplate(connectionFactory());
        template.setMessageConverter(jsonMessageConverter());
        configureRabbitTemplate(template);
        return template;
    }

    @Bean
    public MessageConverter jsonMessageConverter() {
        return new JsonMessageConverter();
    }

    @Bean
    public TopicExchange marketDataExchange() {
        return new TopicExchange("app.stock.marketdata");
    }

    // additional code omitted for brevity

}

In the Stock application, the server is configured using the following @Configuration class:

@Configuration
public class RabbitServerConfiguration extends AbstractStockAppRabbitConfiguration  {

    @Bean
    public Queue stockRequestQueue() {
        return new Queue("app.stock.request");
    }
}

This is the end of the whole inheritance chain of @Configuration classes. The end result is the the TopicExchange and Queue will be declared to the broker upon application startup. There is no binding of the TopicExchange to a queue in the server configuration, as that is done in the client application. The stock request queue however is automatically bound to the AMQP default exchange - this behavior is defined by the specification.

The client @Configuration class is a little more interesting and is shown below.

@Configuration
public class RabbitClientConfiguration extends AbstractStockAppRabbitConfiguration {

    @Value("${stocks.quote.pattern}")
    private String marketDataRoutingKey;

    @Bean
    public Queue marketDataQueue() {
        return amqpAdmin().declareQueue();
    }

    /**
     * Binds to the market data exchange. Interested in any stock quotes
     * that match its routing key.
     */
    @Bean
    public Binding marketDataBinding() {
        return BindingBuilder.bind(
                marketDataQueue()).to(marketDataExchange()).with(marketDataRoutingKey);
    }

    // additional code omitted for brevity

}

The client is declaring another queue via the declareQueue() method on the AmqpAdmin, and it binds that queue to the market data exchange with a routing pattern that is externalized in a properties file.

<federated-exchange name="fedDirect" backing-type="direct"
            upstream-set="upstream-set">
    <direct-bindings>
        <binding queue="bucket" />
    </direct-bindings>
</federated-exchange>

<federated-exchange name="fedTopic" backing-type="topic"
        upstream-set="upstream-set">
    <topic-bindings>
        <binding queue="bucket" pattern="bucket.#"/>
    </topic-bindings>
</federated-exchange>

Many operations with the RabbitMQ Java client can throw checked Exceptions. For example, there are a lot of cases where IOExceptions may be thrown. The RabbitTemplate, SimpleMessageListenerContainer, and other Spring AMQP components will catch those Exceptions and convert into one of the Exceptions within our runtime hierarchy. Those are defined in the 'org.springframework.amqp' package, and AmqpException is the base of the hierarchy.

If you are using a SimpleMessageListenerContainer you will also be able to inject a Spring ErrorHandler instance that can be used to react to an exception in the listener. The ErrorHandler cannot prevent the exception from eventually propagating, but it can be used to log or alert another component that there is a problem.

The Spring Rabbit framework has support for automatic transaction management in the synchronous and asynchronous use cases with a number of different semantics that can be selected declaratively, as is familiar to existing users of Spring transactions. This makes many if not most common messaging patterns very easy to implement.

There are two ways to signal the desired transaction semantics to the framework. In both the RabbitTemplate and SimpleMessageListenerContainer there is a flag channelTransacted which, if true, tells the framework to use a transactional channel and to end all operations (send or receive) with a commit or rollback depending on the outcome, with an exception signaling a rollback. Another signal is to provide an external transaction with one of Spring's PlatformTransactionManager implementations as a context for the ongoing operation. If there is already a transaction in progress when the framework is sending or receiving a message, and the channelTransacted flag is true, then the commit or rollback of the messaging transaction will be deferred until the end of the current transaction. If the channelTransacted flag is false, then no transaction semantics apply to the messaging operation (it is auto-acked).

The channelTransacted flag is a configuration time setting: it is declared and processed once when the AMQP components are created, usually at application startup. The external transaction is more dynamic in principle because the system responds to the current Thread state at runtime, but in practice is often also a configuration setting, when the transactions are layered onto an application declaratively.

For synchronous use cases with RabbitTemplate the external transaction is provided by the caller, either declaratively or imperatively according to taste (the usual Spring transaction model). An example of a declarative approach (usually preferred because it is non-invasive), where the template has been configured with channelTransacted=true:

@Transactional
public void doSomething() {
    String incoming = rabbitTemplate.receiveAndConvert();
    // do some more database processing...
    String outgoing = processInDatabaseAndExtractReply(incoming);
    rabbitTemplate.convertAndSend(outgoing);
}

A String payload is received, converted and sent as a message body inside a method marked as @Transactional, so if the database processing fails with an exception, the incoming message will be returned to the broker, and the outgoing message will not be sent. This applies to any operations with the RabbitTemplate inside a chain of transactional methods (unless the Channel is directly manipulated to commit the transaction early for instance).

For asynchronous use cases with SimpleMessageListenerContainer if an external transaction is needed it has to be requested by the container when it sets up the listener. To signal that an external transaction is required the user provides an implementation of PlatformTransactionManager to the container when it is configured. For example:

@Configuration
public class ExampleExternalTransactionAmqpConfiguration {

    @Bean
    public MessageListenerContainer messageListenerContainer() {
        SimpleMessageListenerContainer container = new SimpleMessageListenerContainer();
        container.setConnectionFactory(rabbitConnectionFactory());
        container.setTransactionManager(transactionManager());
        container.setChannelTransacted(true);
        container.setQueueName("some.queue");
        container.setMessageListener(exampleListener());
        return container;
    }

}

In the example above, the transaction manager is added as a dependency injected from another bean definition (not shown), and the channelTransacted flag is also set to true. The effect is that if the listener fails with an exception the transaction will be rolled back, and the message will also be returned to the broker. Significantly, if the transaction fails to commit (e.g. a database constraint error, or connectivity problem), then the AMQP transaction will also be rolled back, and the message will be returned to the broker. This is sometimes known as a Best Efforts 1 Phase Commit, and is a very powerful pattern for reliable messaging. If the channelTransacted flag was set to false in the example above, which is the default, then the external transaction would still be provided for the listener, but all messaging operations would be auto-acked, so the effect is to commit the messaging operations even on a rollback of the business operation.

@Bean
public RabbitTransactionManager rabbitTransactionManager() {
    return new RabbitTransactionManager(connectionFactory);
}

<bean id="rabbitTxManager"
      class="org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.transaction.RabbitTransactionManager">
    <property name="connectionFactory" ref="connectionFactory"/>
</bean>

There are quite a few options for configuring a SimpleMessageListenerContainer related to transactions and quality of service, and some of them interact with each other.

When configuring with the XML namespace, the convention is to use hyphenated attributes rather than camel case; for example, for property 'connectionFactory', the XML equivalent is 'connection-factory'.

Some of the key (and most popular) high-level features that Spring AMQP provides are to do with recovery and automatic re-connection in the event of a protocol error or broker failure. We have seen all the relevant components already in this guide, but it should help to bring them all together here and call out the features and recovery scenarios individually.

The primary reconnection features are enabled by the CachingConnectionFactory itself. It is also often beneficial to use the RabbitAdmin auto-declaration features. In addition, if you care about guaranteed delivery, you probably also need to use the channelTransacted flag in RabbitTemplate and SimpleMessageListenerContainer and also the AcknowledgeMode.AUTO (or manual if you do the acks yourself) in the SimpleMessageListenerContainer.

There is an open source project called JInterface that provides a way for Java applications to communicate with an Erlang process. The API is very low level and rather tedious to use and throws checked exceptions. The Spring Erlang module makes accessing functions in Erlang from Java easy, often they can be one liners.

The JInterface checked exception hierarchy is translated into a parallel runtime exception hierarchy when executing operations through ErlangTemplate.

The Spring AMQP Samples project includes two sample applications. The first is a simple "Hello World" example that demonstrates both synchronous and asynchronous message reception. It provides an excellent starting point for acquiring an understanding of the essential components. The second sample is based on a stock-trading use case to demonstrate the types of interaction that would be common in real world applications. In this chapter, we will provide a quick walk-through of each sample so that you can focus on the most important components. The samples are both Maven-based, so you should be able to import them directly into any Maven-aware IDE (such as SpringSource Tool Suite).

The Hello World sample demonstrates both synchronous and asynchronous message reception. You can import the 'spring-rabbit-helloworld' sample into the IDE and then follow the discussion below.

@Bean
public ConnectionFactory connectionFactory() {
    CachingConnectionFactory connectionFactory = new CachingConnectionFactory("localhost");
    connectionFactory.setUsername("guest");
    connectionFactory.setPassword("guest");
    return connectionFactory;
}

@Bean
public Queue helloWorldQueue() {
    return new Queue(this.helloWorldQueueName);
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    ApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(RabbitConfiguration.class);
    AmqpTemplate amqpTemplate = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class);
    amqpTemplate.convertAndSend("Hello World");
    System.out.println("Sent: Hello World");
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    ApplicationContext context = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(RabbitConfiguration.class);
    AmqpTemplate amqpTemplate = context.getBean(AmqpTemplate.class);
    System.out.println("Received: " + amqpTemplate.receiveAndConvert());
}

public RabbitTemplate rabbitTemplate() {
    RabbitTemplate template = new RabbitTemplate(connectionFactory());
    template.setRoutingKey(this.helloWorldQueueName);
    return template;
}

static class ScheduledProducer {

    @Autowired
    private volatile RabbitTemplate rabbitTemplate;

    private final AtomicInteger counter = new AtomicInteger();

    @Scheduled(fixedRate = 3000)
    public void sendMessage() {
        rabbitTemplate.convertAndSend("Hello World " + counter.incrementAndGet());
    }
}

public class HelloWorldHandler {

    public void handleMessage(String text) {
        System.out.println("Received: " + text);
    }

}

@Bean
public SimpleMessageListenerContainer listenerContainer() {
    SimpleMessageListenerContainer container = new SimpleMessageListenerContainer();
    container.setConnectionFactory(connectionFactory());
    container.setQueueName(this.helloWorldQueueName);
    container.setMessageListener(new MessageListenerAdapter(new HelloWorldHandler()));
    return container;
}

The Stock Trading sample demonstrates more advanced messaging scenarios than the Hello World sample. However, the configuration is very similar - just a bit more involved. Since we've walked through the Hello World configuration in detail, here we'll focus on what makes this sample different. There is a server that pushes market data (stock quotes) to a Topic Exchange. Then, clients can subscribe to the market data feed by binding a Queue with a routing pattern (e.g. "app.stock.quotes.nasdaq.*"). The other main feature of this demo is a request-reply "stock trade" interaction that is initiated by the client and handled by the server. That involves a private "replyTo" Queue that is sent by the client within the order request Message itself.

The Server's core configuration is in the RabbitServerConfiguration class within the org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks.config.server package. It extends the AbstractStockAppRabbitConfiguration. That is where the resources common to the Server and Client(s) are defined, including the market data Topic Exchange (whose name is 'app.stock.marketdata') and the Queue that the Server exposes for stock trades (whose name is 'app.stock.request'). In that common configuration file, you will also see that a JsonMessageConverter is configured on the RabbitTemplate.

The Server-specific configuration consists of 2 things. First, it configures the market data exchange on the RabbitTemplate so that it does not need to provide that exchange name with every call to send a Message. It does this within an abstract callback method defined in the base configuration class.

public void configureRabbitTemplate(RabbitTemplate rabbitTemplate) {
    rabbitTemplate.setExchange(MARKET_DATA_EXCHANGE_NAME);
}

Secondly, the stock request queue is declared. It does not require any explicit bindings in this case, because it will be bound to the default no-name exchange with its own name as the routing key. As mentioned earlier, the AMQP specification defines that behavior.

@Bean
public Queue stockRequestQueue() {
    return new Queue(STOCK_REQUEST_QUEUE_NAME);
}

Now that you've seen the configuration of the Server's AMQP resources, navigate to the 'org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks' package under the 'src/test/java' directory. There you will see the actual Server class that provides a main() method. It creates an ApplicationContext based on the 'server-bootstrap.xml' config file. In there you will see the scheduled task that publishes dummy market data. That configuration relies upon Spring 3.0's "task" namespace support. The bootstrap config file also imports a few other files. The most interesting one is 'server-messaging.xml' which is directly under 'src/main/resources'. In there you will see the "messageListenerContainer" bean that is responsible for handling the stock trade requests. Finally have a look at the "serverHandler" bean that is defined in "server-handlers.xml" (also in 'src/main/resources'). That bean is an instance of the ServerHandler class and is a good example of a Message-driven POJO that is also capable of sending reply Messages. Notice that it is not itself coupled to the framework or any of the AMQP concepts. It simply accepts a TradeRequest and returns a TradeResponse.

public TradeResponse handleMessage(TradeRequest tradeRequest) { ... }

Now that we've seen the most important configuration and code for the Server, let's turn to the Client. The best starting point is probably RabbitClientConfiguration within the 'org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks.config.client' package. Notice that it declares two queues without providing explicit names.

@Bean
public Queue marketDataQueue() {
    return amqpAdmin().declareQueue();
}

@Bean
public Queue traderJoeQueue() {
    return amqpAdmin().declareQueue();
}

Those are private queues, and unique names will be generated automatically. The first generated queue is used by the Client to bind to the market data exchange that has been exposed by the Server. Recall that in AMQP, consumers interact with Queues while producers interact with Exchanges. The "binding" of Queues to Exchanges is what instructs the broker to deliver, or route, messages from a given Exchange to a Queue. Since the market data exchange is a Topic Exchange, the binding can be expressed with a routing pattern. The RabbitClientConfiguration declares that with a Binding object, and that object is generated with the BindingBuilder's fluent API.

@Value("${stocks.quote.pattern}")
private String marketDataRoutingKey;

@Bean
public Binding marketDataBinding() {
    return BindingBuilder.bind(
            marketDataQueue()).to(marketDataExchange()).with(marketDataRoutingKey);
}

Notice that the actual value has been externalized in a properties file ("client.properties" under src/main/resources), and that we are using Spring's @Value annotation to inject that value. This is generally a good idea, since otherwise the value would have been hardcoded in a class and unmodifiable without recompilation. In this case, it makes it much easier to run multiple versions of the Client while making changes to the routing pattern used for binding. Let's try that now.

Start by running org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks.Server and then org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks.Client. You should see dummy quotes for NASDAQ stocks because the current value associated with the 'stocks.quote.pattern' key in client.properties is 'app.stock.quotes.nasdaq.*'. Now, while keeping the existing Server and Client running, change that property value to 'app.stock.quotes.nyse.*' and start a second Client instance. You should see that the first client is still receiving NASDAQ quotes while the second client receives NYSE quotes. You could instead change the pattern to get all stocks or even an individual ticker.

The final feature we'll explore is the request-reply interaction from the Client's perspective. Recall that we have already seen the ServerHandler that is accepting TradeRequest objects and returning TradeResponse objects. The corresponding code on the Client side is RabbitStockServiceGateway in the 'org.springframework.amqp.rabbit.stocks.gateway' package. It delegates to the RabbitTemplate in order to send Messages.

public void send(TradeRequest tradeRequest) {
    getRabbitTemplate().convertAndSend(tradeRequest, new MessagePostProcessor() {
            public Message postProcessMessage(Message message) throws AmqpException {
                message.getMessageProperties().setReplyTo(new Address(defaultReplyToQueue));
                try {
                    message.getMessageProperties().setCorrelationId(
                            UUID.randomUUID().toString().getBytes("UTF-8"));
                }
                catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                    throw new AmqpException(e);
                }
                return message;
            }
        });
    }

Notice that prior to sending the message, it sets the "replyTo" address. It's providing the queue that was generated by the "traderJoeQueue" bean definition shown above. Here's the @Bean definition for the StockServiceGateway class itself.

@Bean
public StockServiceGateway stockServiceGateway() {
    RabbitStockServiceGateway gateway = new RabbitStockServiceGateway();
    gateway.setRabbitTemplate(rabbitTemplate());
    gateway.setDefaultReplyToQueue(traderJoeQueue());
    return gateway;
}

If you are no longer running the Server and Client, start them now. Try sending a request with the format of '100 TCKR'. After a brief artificial delay that simulates "processing" of the request, you should see a confirmation message appear on the Client.

The Spring Integration project includes AMQP Channel Adapters and Gateways that build upon the Spring AMQP project. Those adapters are developed and released in the Spring Integration project. In Spring Integration, "Channel Adapters" are unidirectional (one-way) whereas "Gateways" are bidirectional (request-reply). We provide an inbound-channel-adapter, outbound-channel-adapter, inbound-gateway, and outbound-gateway.

Since the AMQP adapters are part of the Spring Integration release, the documentation will be available as part of the Spring Integration distribution. As a taster, we just provide a quick overview of the main features here.

To receive AMQP Messages from a Queue, configure an <inbound-channel-adapter>

<amqp:inbound-channel-adapter channel="fromAMQP"
                              queue-names="some.queue"
                              connection-factory="rabbitConnectionFactory"/>

To send AMQP Messages to an Exchange, configure an <outbound-channel-adapter>. A 'routing-key' may optionally be provided in addition to the exchange name.

<amqp:outbound-channel-adapter channel="toAMQP"
                               exchange-name="some.exchange"
                               routing-key="foo"
                               amqp-template="rabbitTemplate"/>

To receive an AMQP Message from a Queue, and respond to its reply-to address, configure an <inbound-gateway>.

<amqp:inbound-gateway request-channel="fromAMQP"
                               reply-channel="toAMQP"
                               queue-names="some.queue"
                               connection-factory="rabbitConnectionFactory"/>

To send AMQP Messages to an Exchange and receive back a response from a remote client, configure an <outbound-gateway>. A 'routing-key' may optionally be provided in addition to the exchange name.

<amqp:outbound-gateway request-channel="toAMQP"
                               reply-channel="fromAMQP"
                               exchange-name="some.exchange"
                               routing-key="foo"
                               amqp-template="rabbitTemplate"/>