Channels

KubeMQ Channel (Topic/Subject/Address/Destination) is a string-based representation of an endpoint or a target of a message.

Senders and Receivers

The core functionality of KubeMQ messaging is sending and receiving messages.

Senders (publishers) can send one or many messages (stream) to one or many destinations (Channels). Sending a message does not require the set up of any predefined destination.

Receiver (subscribers/listeners) can receive messages from one or more senders on the same channel or a wildcards channel. Before a Receiver can receive any messages, a Subscription function is needed to register his interest in receiving messages from a senders designation.

Format

A channel string can be formed from any UTF-8 characters with the following attributes:

• Case sensitive, FOO and foo are different channel names

• No white spaces allowed

• Cannot be Blank (")

• ., *, > are special characters for token hierarchies.

• Cannot start with .

• Can begin with > or * (for subscription receivers only)

• Unlimited hierarchies

Hierarchies

Channels names can be separated by the . symbol to create messaging stream hierarchies.

One level hierarchy:

foo, USA, org are valid one level hierarchies.

Two-level hierarchies:

foo.bar, USA.NewYork, org.department are valid two-level hierarchies.

N level hierarchies:

foo.bar.A.B.C.> is valid n (n=6) level hierarchies.

Wildcards

KubeMQ supports two wildcards, * and >. Wildcards are used to subscribe to a group of channels’strings.

Asterisk *

Matching a single token in any hierarchy

Greater >

Matching one or more tokens at the tail of a channel

Examples:

Here some cases of channel subscription patterns and which types of messages with channels are accepted and ignored.

Channel Pattern	Messages Accepted	Messages Ignored
foo	foo	bar,zoo
foo.*	foo.bar,foo.ZOO	foo,foo.bar.zoo
foo.>	foo.bar.zoo	foo
foo.*.*.bar	foo.a.b.bar	foo.bar.zoo
foo*.>	foo.bar,foo1.bar`	foo\
>	any message	none