amqp.channel

A simplified way to setup an AMQP connection/channel with amqplib. It's a function that takes an AMQP url as the first parameter and an optional second parameter that defines which methods and arguments should be called on the channel. The function returns a Promise that will resolve with the a channel object once all the method invocations defined in the second parameter have been resolved. Please see amqplib's documentation for the channel API.

Simplified Configuration

amqplib syntax:

require('amqplib').connect(url).then(function(connection){
  return connection.createConfirmChannel();
}).then(function(channel){
  return require('bluebird').all([
    channel.assertExchange('exchange', 'fanout', { durable: true }),
    channel.checkExchange('exchange'),
    channel.bindExchange('alt.exchange', 'exchange', ''),
    channel.unbindExchange('alt.exchange', 'exchange', ''),
    channel.deleteExchange('alt.exchange', { ifEmpty: true }),
    channel.assertQueue('first', { durable: true }),
    channel.assertQueue('second'),
    channel.checkQueue('first'),
    channel.bindQueue('first', 'exchange', ''),
    channel.unbindQueue('first', 'exchange', ''),
    channel.purgeQueue('first'),
    channel.deleteQueue('first', { ifEmpty: true }),
    channel.deleteQueue('second')
  ]);
}).then(function(channel){
  // Do stuff with the channel
});

amqp.channel syntax:

require('amqp.channel')(url, {
  assertExchange : [['exchange', 'fanout', { durable: true }]],
  checkExchange  : [['exchange']],
  bindExchange   : [['alt.exchange', 'exchange', '']],
  unbindExchange : [['alt.exchange', 'exchange', '']],
  deleteExchange : [['alt.exchange', { ifEmpty: true }]],
  assertQueue    : [['first', { durable: true  }], ['second']],
  checkQueue     : [['first']],
  bindQueue      : [['first', 'exchange', '']],
  unbindQueue    : [['first', 'exchange', '']],
  purgeQueue     : [['first']],
  deleteQueue    : [['first', { ifEmpty: true }], ['second']]
}).then(function(channel){
  // Do stuff with the channel
});

Simplified Usage

The channel object resolved by the returned Promise will behave differently from a normal channel object returned by the amqplib library in a few (hopefully convenient) ways:

1. The consume, publish, and sendToQueue channel methods have been changed to explicitly handle JSON.
2. The publish and sendToQueue methods have been "promisified" in a way that will still provide information to know whether or not the write buffer is full (and therefore, whether or not you should continue writing to it) by adding an additional ok boolean property to the promise.
3. A channel consumer callback will no longer receive null when that consumer had been cancelled by Rabbit MQ. Instead, the channel object will emit a 'cancelled' event with all the arguments passed to the channel.consume() call for the consumer that was cancelled.

Examples of Modified Usage:

Automatic translation of JS object to JSON string to Buffer for sending/publishing:

channel.sendToQueue('someQueue', { hello: 'world' });
channel.publish('someExchange', 'routingKey', { hello: 'world' });

Promisification of sendToQueue and publish methods:

return channel.sendToQueue('someQueue', { hello: 'world' }).then(function(){
  return channel.publish('someExchange', 'routingKey', { hello: 'world' });
});

Automatic translation of message Buffer to JSON string to JS object for consuming:

channel.sendToQueue('someQueue', { hello: 'world' });
channel.consume('someQueue', function(parsedMessage, originalMessage){
  console.log('hello', parsedMessage.hello); // => hello world
  channel.ack(originalMessage);
});

Handling a consumer getting cancelled by Rabbit MQ:

channel.on('cancelled', function(queue, callback, options){
  // When the consumer below gets cancelled by Rabbit MQ
  console.log(queue, callback.name, options); // 'someQueue', 'onMessage', { noAck: true }
});
channel.consume('someQueue', function onMessage(parsedMessage, originalMessage){
  console.log(parsedMessage);
}, { noAck: true });

The ok property on the promises returned by the sendToQueue and publish methods:

var sent = channel.sendToQueue('someQueue', { hello: 'world' });
if (sent.ok) {
  // continue sending
} else {
  // maybe pause sending until unblocked?
  channel.once('drain', function(){
    // continue sending
  });
}

Real World Example

Say you wanted to listen to the 'foo' exchange and send a different message to the 'bar' queue every time the message's baz property contained the word 'qux'.

In your config.js:

var env = process.env;
var cfg = {
  exchange: env.EXCHANGE_TO_BIND_TO || 'foo',
  queue: {
    toSendTo: env.QUEUE_TO_SEND_TO || 'bar',
    toConsumeFrom: env.QUEUE_TO_CONSUME_FROM  || 'baz',
  }
  amqpUrl: env.RABBIT_MQ_URL || 'amqp://test:[email protected]:5672'
};

cfg.channelMethodsToCall = {
  assertQueue: // Channel method to invoke
  [ // Array of channel method invocations
    [ // channel.assertQueue( cfg.queue.toConsumeFrom )
      cfg.queue.toConsumeFrom
    ],
    [ // channel.assertQueue( cfg.queue.toSendTo, { durable: true } );
      cfg.queue.toSendTo, { durable: true }
    ]
  ],
  assertExchange: [
    [ cfg.exchange, 'fanout' ] // channel.assetExchange(cfg.exchange, 'fanout')
  ],
  bindQueue: [
    [ cfg.queue.toConsumeFrom, cfg.exchange, '' ]
  ]
}

module.exports = cfg;

In your app.js:

var cfg = require('./config');
var amqp = require('amqp.channel');

module.exports = amqp(cfg.amqpUrl, cfg.channelMethodsToCall)
  .then(consumeAtMost(1))
  .then(consumeFrom(cfg.queue.toConsumeFrom));
  
function consumeAtMost(maxMessages){
  return function(channel){
    // Only process `maxMessages` at a time and don't consume another
    // message until we've either `ack` or `nack` the current one.
    return channel.prefetch(maxMessage).then(function(){
      return channel;
    });
  }
}

function consumeFrom(queue){
  return function(channel){
    channel.consume(queue, function onMessage(parsed, msg){
      if (/baz/.test(parsed.baz)) {
        var msgToSend = { hello: 'world' };
        var options = { persistent: true };
        var sendMsg = channel.sendToQueue(cfg.queue.toSendTo, msgToSend, options);
        
        sendMsg.catch(function(e){
          console.error(e);
          // Try to process message again?
          // onMessage(parsed, msg);
        });
        
        if (sendMsg.ok) {
          channel.ack(msg);
        } else {
          sendMsg.then(function(){
            channel.ack(msg);
          });
        }
      } else {
        channel.ack(msg);
      }
    });
  
    channel.on('cancelled', function onConsumerCancelled(queue, cb, options){
      console.warn('RabbitMQ cancelled your consumer for %s', queue);
      // Try to setup the consumer again?
      // channel.consume(queue, cb, options);
    });
  
    return channel;
  }
}