Last-Value queues are special queues which discard any messages when a newer message with the same value for a well-defined Last-Value property is put in the queue. In other words, a Last-Value queue only retains the last value.
A typical example for Last-Value queue is for stock prices, where you are only interested by the latest value for a particular stock.
Last-value queues are defined in the address-setting configuration:
<address-setting match="jms.queue.lastValueQueue"> <last-value-queue>true</last-value-queue> </address-setting>
By default, last-value-queue is false. Address wildcards can be used to configure Last-Value queues for a set of addresses (see Chapter 11, Understanding the JBoss Messaging Wildcard Syntax).
The property name used to identify the last value is "_JBM_LVQ_NAME" (or the constant MessageImpl.HDR_LAST_VALUE_NAME from the Core API).
For example, if two messages with the same value for the Last-Value property are sent to a Last-Value queue, only the latest message will be kept in the queue:
// send 1st message with Last-Value property set to STOCK_NAME TextMessage message = session.createTextMessage("1st message with Last-Value property set"); message.setStringProperty("_JBM_LVQ_NAME", "STOCK_NAME"); producer.send(message); // send 2nd message with Last-Value property set to STOCK_NAME message = session.createTextMessage("2nd message with Last-Value property set"); message.setStringProperty("_JBM_LVQ_NAME", "STOCK_NAME"); producer.send(message); ... // only the 2nd message will be received: it is the latest with // the Last-Value property set TextMessage messageReceived = (TextMessage)messageConsumer.receive(5000); System.out.format("Received message: %s\n", messageReceived.getText());
See Section 9.1.22, “Last-Value Queue” for an example which shows how last value queues are configured and used with JMS.