Request-Response is a message-exchange-pattern. In some cases, a message producer may want the consumers to reply to a message. The JMSReplyTo header indicates which destination, if any, a JMS consumer should reply to. The JMSReplyTo header is set explicitly by the JMS client; its contents will be a javax.jms.Destination object (either Topic or Queue).

In some cases, the JMS client will want the message consumers to reply to a temporary topic or queue set up by the JMS client. When a JMS message consumer receives a message that includes a JMSReplyTo destination, it can reply using that destination. A JMS consumer is not required to send a reply, but in some JMS applications, clients are programmed to do so.

For simplicity, this pattern is typically implemented in a purely synchronous fashion, as in web service calls over HTTP, which holds a connection open and waits until the response is delivered or the timeout period expires. However, request–response may also be implemented asynchronously, with a response being returned at some unknown later time.

For more information, check here.

Now, let’s jump into the code. In Spring, there are 2 ways to implement this (at least I know of).

1. Using JMSTemplate
2. Using Spring Integration

For demo purpose, I used ActiveMQ. However, you can implement this in other messaging systems like IBM MQ, Rabbit MQ, Tibco EMS, etc. In this demo, I send an ObjectMessage of type Order and reply with a Shipment object.

Using JMSTemplate

1. First, we include the required dependencies. Replace the activemq dependency with your messaging system’s jars if not using ActiveMQ

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-activemq</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.activemq.tooling</groupId>
            <artifactId>activemq-junit</artifactId>
            <version>${activemq.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
   

2. Using the default spring.activemq. properties to configure the application with the ActiveMQ. However, you can do this inside a @Configuration class as well.

    spring:
      activemq:
        broker-url: tcp://localhost:61616
        non-blocking-redelivery: true
        packages:
          trust-all: true    
   

3. Note in the above configuration spring.activemq.packages.trust-all can be changed to spring.activemq.packages.trusted with the appropriate packages.

4. Now spring will do it’s magic and inject all the required Beans as usual :) However, in our code, we need to EnableJms

    import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
    import org.springframework.jms.annotation.EnableJms;
   
    @EnableJms
    @Configuration
    public class ActiveMQConfig {
   
        public static final String ORDER_QUEUE = "order-queue";
        public static final String ORDER_REPLY_2_QUEUE = "order-reply-2-queue";
   
    }
   

5. First, we will configure the Producer

    @Slf4j
    @Service
    public class Producer {
   
        @Autowired
        JmsMessagingTemplate jmsMessagingTemplate;
   
        @Autowired
        JmsTemplate jmsTemplate;
   
        public Shipment sendWithReply(Order order) throws JMSException {
            jmsTemplate.setReceiveTimeout(1000L);
            jmsMessagingTemplate.setJmsTemplate(jmsTemplate);
   
            Session session = jmsMessagingTemplate.getConnectionFactory().createConnection()
                    .createSession(false, Session.AUTO_ACKNOWLEDGE);
   
            ObjectMessage objectMessage = session.createObjectMessage(order);
   
            objectMessage.setJMSCorrelationID(UUID.randomUUID().toString());
            objectMessage.setJMSReplyTo(new ActiveMQQueue(ORDER_REPLY_2_QUEUE));
            objectMessage.setJMSCorrelationID(UUID.randomUUID().toString());
            objectMessage.setJMSExpiration(1000L);
            objectMessage.setJMSDeliveryMode(DeliveryMode.NON_PERSISTENT);
   
            return jmsMessagingTemplate.convertSendAndReceive(new ActiveMQQueue(ORDER_QUEUE),
                    objectMessage, Shipment.class); //this operation seems to be blocking + sync
        }
    }
   

6. Note in the above code that, JmsMessagingTemplate is used instead of JmsTemplate because, we are interested in the method convertSendAndReceive. As seen in the method signature, it waits to receive the Shipment object from the consumer.

7. Next, we can see the Receiver

    @Component
    public class Receiver implements SessionAwareMessageListener<Message> {
   
        @Override
        @JmsListener(destination = ORDER_QUEUE)
        public void onMessage(Message message, Session session) throws JMSException {
            Order order = (Order) ((ActiveMQObjectMessage) message).getObject();
            Shipment shipment = new Shipment(order.getId(), UUID.randomUUID().toString());
   
            // done handling the request, now create a response message
            final ObjectMessage responseMessage = new ActiveMQObjectMessage();
            responseMessage.setJMSCorrelationID(message.getJMSCorrelationID());
            responseMessage.setObject(shipment);
   
            // Message sent back to the replyTo address of the income message.
            final MessageProducer producer = session.createProducer(message.getJMSReplyTo());
            producer.send(responseMessage);
        }
    }
   

8. Using the javax.jms.Session the javax.jms.MessageProducer is created and used to send the reply message to the JMSReplyTo queue. In real life, this receiver could be a different application altogether.

Using Spring Integration

1. First, we include the required dependencies in addition to the above dependencies

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework.integration</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-integration-jms</artifactId>
    </dependency>
   

2. Using the default spring.activemq. properties to configure the application with the ActiveMQ. However, you can do this inside a @Configuration class as well.

    spring:
      activemq:
        broker-url: tcp://localhost:61616
        non-blocking-redelivery: true
        packages:
          trust-all: true    
   

3. Note in the above configuration spring.activemq.packages.trust-all can be changed to spring.activemq.packages.trusted with the appropriate packages.

4. Next we create the required Beans for the Spring Integration.

    @EnableIntegration
    @IntegrationComponentScan
    @Configuration
    public class ActiveMQConfig {
   
        public static final String ORDER_QUEUE = "order-queue";
        public static final String ORDER_REPLY_2_QUEUE = "order-reply-2-queue";
   
        @Bean
        public MessageConverter messageConverter() {
            MappingJackson2MessageConverter converter = new MappingJackson2MessageConverter();
            converter.setTargetType(MessageType.TEXT);
            converter.setTypeIdPropertyName("_type");
            return converter;
        }
   
        @Bean
        public MessageChannel requests() {
            return new DirectChannel();
        }
   
        @Bean
        @ServiceActivator(inputChannel = "requests")
        public JmsOutboundGateway jmsGateway(ActiveMQConnectionFactory activeMQConnectionFactory) {
            JmsOutboundGateway gateway = new JmsOutboundGateway();
            gateway.setConnectionFactory(activeMQConnectionFactory);
            gateway.setRequestDestinationName(ORDER_QUEUE);
            gateway.setReplyDestinationName(ORDER_REPLY_2_QUEUE);
            gateway.setCorrelationKey("JMSCorrelationID");
            gateway.setSendTimeout(100L);
            gateway.setReceiveTimeout(100L);
            return gateway;
        }
   
        @Autowired
        Receiver receiver;
   
        @Bean
        public DefaultMessageListenerContainer responder(ActiveMQConnectionFactory activeMQConnectionFactory) {
            DefaultMessageListenerContainer container = new DefaultMessageListenerContainer();
            container.setConnectionFactory(activeMQConnectionFactory);
            container.setDestinationName(ORDER_QUEUE);
            MessageListenerAdapter adapter = new MessageListenerAdapter(new Object() {
   
                @SuppressWarnings("unused")
                public Shipment handleMessage(Order order) {
                    return receiver.receiveMessage(order);
                }
   
            });
            container.setMessageListener(adapter);
            return container;
        }
    }
   

5. Next, we will configure the MessagingGateway

    @MessagingGateway(defaultRequestChannel = "requests")
    public interface ClientGateway {
        Shipment sendAndReceive(Order order);
    }
   

6. We then Autowire this gateway in our Component class when we want to send and receive the message. A sample is shown below.

    @Slf4j
    @Component
    public class Receiver {
        public Shipment receiveMessage(@Payload Order order) {
            Shipment shipment = new Shipment(order.getId(), UUID.randomUUID().toString());
            return shipment;
        }
    }
   

7. Next we configure the Componen to process the Order message. After successful execution, this component will send the Shipment message to the JMSReplyTo queue. In real life, this receiver could be a different application altogether.

For those, who just want to clone the code, head out to aniruthmp/jms