RabbitMQ C AMQP client library

Introduction

This is a C-language AMQP client library for use with AMQP servers speaking protocol versions 0-9-1.

Announcements regarding the library are periodically made on the RabbitMQ mailing list and on the RabbitMQ blog.

Retrieving the code

In addition to the source code for this library, you will require a copy of rabbitmq-codegen, which resides in the codegen directory as a git submodule. To update the submodule(s):

git clone git://github.com/alanxz/rabbitmq-c.git
cd rabbitmq-c
git submodule init
git submodule update

You will also need a recent python with the simplejson module installed, and the GNU autotools (autoconf, automake, libtool etc.), or as an alternative CMake.

Building the code

Using autoconf

Once you have all the prerequisites, change to the rabbitmq-c directory and run

autoreconf -i

to run the GNU autotools and generate the configure script, followed by

./configure
make

to build the librabbitmq library and the example programs.

Using cmake

You will need CMake (v2.6 or better): http://cmake.org/

You will need a working python install (2.6+) with the json or simplejson modules installed.

You will need to do the git submodule init/update as above. Alternatively you can clone the rabbitmq-codegen repository and point cmake to it using the RABBITMQ_CODEGEN_DIR cmake variable

Create a binary directory in a sibling directory from the directory you cloned the rabbitmq-c repository

mkdir bin-rabbitmq-c

Run CMake in the binary directory

cmake /path/to/source/directory

Build it:

On linux: make
On win32: nmake or msbuild, or open it in visual studio and build from there

Things you can pass to cmake to change the build:

-DRABBITMQ_CODEGEN_DIR=/path/to/rabbitmq-codegen/checkout - if you have your codegen directory in a different place [Default is sibiling directory to source]
-DBUILD_TOOLS=OFF build the programs in the tools directory [Default is ON if the POPT library can be found]

Other interesting flags to pass to CMake (see cmake docs for more info)

-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE - specify the type of build (Debug or Release)
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX - specify where the install target puts files

Running the examples

Arrange for a RabbitMQ or other AMQP server to be running on localhost at TCP port number 5672.

In one terminal, run

./examples/amqp_listen localhost 5672 amq.direct test

In another terminal,

./examples/amqp_sendstring localhost 5672 amq.direct test "hello world"

You should see output similar to the following in the listener's terminal window:

Result 1
Frame type 1, channel 1
Method AMQP_BASIC_DELIVER_METHOD
Delivery 1, exchange amq.direct routingkey test
Content-type: text/plain
----
00000000: 68 65 6C 6C 6F 20 77 6F : 72 6C 64                 hello world
0000000B:

Writing applications using `librabbitmq`

Please see the examples directory for short examples of the use of the librabbitmq library.

Threading

You cannot share a socket, an amqp_connection_state_t, or a channel between threads using librabbitmq. The librabbitmq library is built with event-driven, single-threaded applications in mind, and does not yet cater to any of the requirements of pthreaded applications.

Your applications instead should open an AMQP connection (and an associated socket, of course) per thread. If your program needs to access an AMQP connection or any of its channels from more than one thread, it is entirely responsible for designing and implementing an appropriate locking scheme. It will generally be much simpler to have a connection exclusive to each thread that needs AMQP service.