[rabbitmq-discuss] Queue Re-declaration

Thu Mar 26 07:34:18 GMT 2009

Brian,

Brian Sullivan wrote:
> Also - what is the expected behavior if you delete a queue (externally 
> using a different client) that a consuming application has a binding 
> to?  In my testing, I don't believe I get any errors back to the client, 
> it just seems to be silently listening for more messages that will never 
> come.  This is using the Java client.

That is the expected behaviour in AMQP 0-8.

In 0-9-1 the notion of queue exclusivity extends to *all* queue 
operations, not just basic.consume. So if a client declares a queue as 
exclusive then no other client can do anything with that queue at all, 
including deleting it.

The problem you describe will still exist for non-exclusive queues 
though. Arguably a queue should inform consumers when it is 
disappearing. AMQP does not support this, and I don't know of any plans 
of adding such a feature. One possible workaround is for clients to 
periodically check whether the queue still exists.

Regards,

Matthias.