[rabbitmq-discuss] RabbitMQ/AMQP understanding

Fri Aug 22 21:43:59 BST 2008

Torben Hoffmann wrote:
> My plan is to use Erlang for the consumers since they have to deal with
> a very concise protocol so pattern matching and bit strings is just what
> the doctor ordered!

Aha! That changes things. Well, not really, but enough to be even more
interesting. :)

> The specific behaviour I am looking for is that when a message arrives
> in a queue that a consumer is tied to that message will be sent to the
> consumer directly (this is what I meant by interrupt-like) instead of
> having to program the consumer to look in the queue for a message ever
> so often to see if there is something for it (this is what I meant by
> polling).

OK so I guessed correctly what you meant. I haven't worked with the
erlang-rabbit client yet but it seems easy enough and logical to set up a
local process (or register a fun) that chews on the queue (or blocks) and
then hands stuff over to the actual worker. This will give you your
"notification".
This is exactly what the example in Ben's blog demonstrates:
http://hopper.squarespace.com/blog/2008/1/12/introducing-the-erlang-amqp-client.html

regards
Holger