rabbitmq - Is it possible for workers to consume based on topic?

Question

I understand that you can send messages directly to a queue using channel.sendToQueue, and this creates a tasks-and-workers situation, where only one consumer will handle each task.

I also understand that you can use channel.publish with a topic-based exchange, and messages will be routed to queues based on the routing key. To my understanding, though, this will always broadcast to all subscribers on any matching queues.

I would essentially like to use the topic-based exchange, but only have one consumer handle each task. I've been through the documentation, and I don't see a way to do this.

My use-case:

I have instances of a microservice set up in multiple locations. There might be two in California, three in London, one in Singapore, etc. When a task is created, the only thing that matters is that it's handled by one of the instances in a given location.

Of course, I can create hundreds of queues named "usa-90210", "uk-ec1a", etc. It just seems like using topics would be much cleaner. It would also be more flexible, given the ability to use wildcards.

If this isn't a feature of RabbitMQ, I'm open to other thoughts or ideas as well.

UPDATE

As per istepaniuk's suggestion, I've tried creating two workers, each binding their own queue to the exchange:

const connectionA = await amqplib.connect('amqp://guest:guest@127.0.0.1:5672');
const channelA = await connectionA.createChannel();
channelA.assertExchange('test_exchange', 'topic', { durable: false });
await channelA.assertQueue('test_queue_a', { exclusive: true });
channelA.bindQueue('test_queue_a', 'test_exchange', 'usa.*');
await channelA.consume('test_queue_a', () => { console.log('worker a'); }, { noAck: true });

const connectionB = await amqplib.connect('amqp://guest:guest@127.0.0.1:5672');
const channelB = await connectionB.createChannel();
channelB.assertExchange('test_exchange', 'topic', { durable: false });
await channelB.assertQueue('test_queue_b', { exclusive: true });
channelB.bindQueue('test_queue_b', 'test_exchange', 'usa.*');
await channelB.consume('test_queue_b', () => { console.log('worker b'); }, { noAck: true });

const pubConnection = await amqplib.connect('amqp://guest:guest@127.0.0.1:5672');
const pubChannel = await pubConnection.createChannel();
pubChannel.assertExchange('test_exchange', 'topic', { durable: false });
pubChannel.publish('test_exchange', 'usa.90210', Buffer.from(''));

Unfortunately, both consumers are still receiving the message.

worker a
worker b

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65860805/is-it-possible-for-workers-to-consume-based-on-topic

Answer 1

Yes.

I would essentially like to use the topic-based exchange, but only have one consumer handle each task. I've been through the documentation, and I don't see a way to do this.

Use a topic exchange and have your consumers declare and bind their own queues. What you describe is a very common scenario. It is outlined in the tutorial 5, "Topics".

Additionally, you can have multiple consumers share a queue (just don't declare it exclusive). This is described in tutorial 2, "Workers".

The multiple instances of consumers can declare the same queue and bindings, the operation is idempotent. Using durable queues (as opposed to exclusive) also means that the messages will queue up if all your consumers disappear or the network fails.