Summary

Message types are structured templates (classes) that describe what can go in a particular kind of message, and each message can be considered an instance of a message type.

TIBCO SmartSockets comes with a number of standard message types, ready to be used. You can also define your own message types.

A message consists of a set of header properties and a data part. The properties in a message are the same across all message types. Properties include its type, sender, destination, priority, read-only status, delivery mode, delivery timeout, load balancing mode, header string encode, reference count, sequence number, and a user-definable property.

The data part of a message consists of fields that carry a unit of information. The message data can contain any number of fields, although most messages have a well-defined layout for their fields.

A TIBCO SmartSockets message can carry any type of information, including XML.

TIBCO SmartSockets transparently converts all data to the proper format using a final receiver-makes-right approach. You never need to worry about any data translation between different platforms.

The TIBCO SmartSockets API has an extensive set of functions that allows you to create, copy, and destroy messages, as well as get and set any of the message properties, and to build and access the data part of a message.

Typically, these three steps are required when constructing a message:

Set the properties of the message (TipcMsgSet*).

Append fields to the message (TipcMsgAppend* or TipcMsgAddNamed*).

Messages are read from RTserver using TipcSrvMsgNext.

Typically, retrieving information from the data part of a message consists of these two steps:

Access the fields of the message sequentially (TipcMsgNext*) or by name (TipcMsgGetNamed*).

Messages leaving or coming into a process can be logged. Logging is enabled by setting the TIBCO SmartSockets options Log_In_Data, Log_In_Status, Log_In_Internal, Log_Out_Data, Log_Out_Status, and Log_Out_Internal.

TIBCO SmartSockets options are set using the setopt command or programmatically using the utility functions TutOptionSet*.

TIBCO SmartSockets commands can be placed into a file and sourced using the utility function TutCommandParseFile. TIBCO SmartSockets commands can be executed programmatically using TutCommandParseStr.