What are JMS messages?

JMS messages implement the Message interface.

JMS messages include a header, properties, and the message body. Headers provide identifying and routing information. Properties allow arbitrary ornamenting of messages with application-specific markers or tags. Receiving clients can select, or filter, messages based on properties.

The message body is available in five flavors:

• StreamMessage - a stream of Java primitive values
• MapMessage - a set of name-value pairs
• TextMessage - a String object
• ObjectMessage - a serialzed Java object
• BytesMessage - a stream of uninterpreted bytes

To obtain a message of the requisite type, make a request via the appropriate create method, for example:

  TextMessage message = session.createTextMessage();

Note that some vendors provide additional message types.