Java Message Service, 2nd Edition

Message Groups and Acknowledgment

When multiple messages need to be dealt with as a group, the application needs to be able to store or cache interim messages until the entire group has been delivered. This requirement typically means that the asynchronous invocation of the onMessage() handler would result in business logic getting executed and data would be placed temporarily in a database table in preparation for processing the group of messages as a whole. When the last message of the group arrives, the application can then go to the database to retrieve the data from the previous messages to establish any context it may need.

Handling Redelivery of Messages in an Application

JMS provides strict rules that govern when the redelivered flag is set. In AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE mode, only the most recently consumed message is subject to ambiguous redelivery. In other modes, multiple messages may have the redelivered flag set. It is up to the application designer to isolate the conditions under which ambiguity can occur and to account for it in the application. To illustrate the use of the CLIENT_ACKNOWLEDGE mode and redelivered flag, we will use a simple example where multiple messages are sent as a group to the receiver.

Whenever a message is redelivered to a message consumer, the JMSRedelivered message header property will be set to true on the message. This is an indication to the message consumer that the message has been partially processed but an exception occurred preventing that message ...