Messaging API supporting acknowledgements and request-response

Setup

Inject the appropriate logger and set up connection parameters:

logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
freddy = Freddy.build(logger, host: 'localhost', port: 5672, user: 'guest', pass: 'guest')

Supported message queues

These message queues have been tested and are working with Freddy. Other queues can be added easily:

RabbitMQ

Delivering messages

Simple delivery

Send and forget

Sends a message to the given destination. If there is no consumer then the message stays in the queue until somebody consumes it.

  freddy.deliver(destination, message)

Expiring messages

Sends a message to the given destination. If nobody consumes the message in timeout seconds then the message is discarded. This is useful for showing notifications that must happen in a certain timeframe but where we don't really care if it reached the destination or not.

freddy.deliver(destination, message, timeout: 5)

Request delivery

Expiring messages

Sends a message to the given destination. Has a default timeout of 3 and discards the message from the queue if a response hasn't been returned in that time.

response = freddy.deliver_with_response(destination, message)

Persistant messages

Sends a message to the given destination. Keeps the message in the queue if a timeout occurs.

response = freddy.deliver_with_response(destination, message, timeout: 4, delete_on_timeout: false)

Errors

deliver_with_response raises an error if an error is returned. This can be handled by rescuing from Freddy::InvalidRequestError and Freddy::TimeoutError as:

begin
  response = freddy.deliver_with_response 'Q', {}
  # ...
rescue Freddy::InvalidRequestError => e
  e.response # => { error: 'InvalidRequestError', message: 'Some error message' }
rescue Freddy::TimeoutError => e
  e.response # => { error: 'RequestTimeout', message: 'Timed out waiting for response' }

Responding to messages

freddy.respond_to destination do |message, msg_handler|
  # ...
end

The callback is called with 2 arguments

the parsed message (note that in the message all keys are symbolized)
the MessageHandler (described further down)

The MessageHandler

When responding to messages the MessageHandler is given as the second argument.

The following operations are supported:

responding with a successful response
```
msg_handler.success(response = nil)
```

responding with an error response

msg_handler.error(error: "Couldn't process message")

Tapping into messages

When it's necessary to receive messages but not consume them, consider tapping.

freddy.tap_into pattern do |message, destination|

destination refers to the destination that the message was sent to
Note that it is not possible to respond to the message while tapping.
When tapping the following wildcards are supported in the pattern :
- # matching 0 or more words
- * matching exactly one word

Examples:

freddy.tap_into "i.#.free"

receives messages that are delivered to "i.want.to.break.free"

freddy.tap_into "somebody.*.love"

receives messages that are delivered to somebody.to.love but doesn't receive messages delivered to someboy.not.to.love

The ResponderHandler

When responding to a message or tapping the ResponderHandler is returned.

responder_handler = freddy.respond_to ....

The following operations are supported:

stop responding ruby responder_handler.shutdown

Notes about concurrency

freddy uses a thread pool to run concurrent responders. The thread pool is unique for each tap_into and respond_to responder. Thread pool size can be configured by passing the configuration option max_concurrency. Its default value is 4. e.g. If your application has 2 respond_to responders and 1 tap_into responder with max_concurrency set to 3 then your application may process up to 9 messages in parallel.

Note that while it is possible to use deliver_with_response inside a respond_to block, it is not possible to use another respond_to block inside a different respond_to block.

Note also that other configuration options for freddy users such as pool sizes for DB connections need to match or exceed max_concurrency to avoid running out of resources.

Credits

freddy was originally written by Urmas Talimaa as part of SaleMove development team.

freddy is maintained and funded by SaleMove, Inc.

The names and logos for SaleMove are trademarks of SaleMove, Inc.