Universal Messaging provides message queue functionality through the use of queue objects. Queues are the logical rendezvous point for publishers (producers) and subscribers (consumers) of data (events).

Message queues differ from publish / subscribe channels in the way that events are delivered to consumers. Whilst queues may have multiple consumers, each event is typically only delivered to one consumer, and once consumed (popped) it is removed from the queue.

Universal Messaging also supports non destructive reads (peeks) from queues which enable consumers to see what events are on a queue without removing it from the queue. Any event which has been peeked will still be queued for popping in the normal way. The Universal Messaging enterprise manager also supports the ability to visually peek a queue using its snoop capability.

This section demonstrates how Universal Messaging message queues work in C++, and provide examples code snippets for all relevant concepts.