Send messages to an Azure Service Bus topic and receive messages from subscriptions to the topic (Python)

This article shows you how to use Python to send messages a Service Bus topic and receive messages from a subscription to the topic.

Prerequisites

Send messages to a topic

  1. Add the following import statement.

    from azure.servicebus import ServiceBusClient, ServiceBusMessage

  2. Add the following constants.

    CONNECTION_STR = "<NAMESPACE CONNECTION STRING>"
TOPIC_NAME = "<TOPIC NAME>"
SUBSCRIPTION_NAME = "<SUBSCRIPTION NAME>"

    Important

    • Replace <NAMESPACE CONNECTION STRING> with the connection string for your namespace.
    • Replace <TOPIC NAME> with the name of the topic.
    • Replace <SUBSCRIPTION NAME> with the name of the subscription to the topic.

  3. Add a method to send a single message.

    def send_single_message(sender):
    # create a Service Bus message
    message = ServiceBusMessage("Single Message")
    # send the message to the topic
    sender.send_messages(message)
    print("Sent a single message")

    The sender is a object that acts as a client for the topic you created. You'll create it later and send as an argument to this function.

  4. Add a method to send a list of messages.

    def send_a_list_of_messages(sender):
    # create a list of messages
    messages = [ServiceBusMessage("Message in list") for _ in range(5)]
    # send the list of messages to the topic
    sender.send_messages(messages)
    print("Sent a list of 5 messages")

  5. Add a method to send a batch of messages.

    def send_batch_message(sender):
    # create a batch of messages
    batch_message = sender.create_message_batch()
    for _ in range(10):
        try:
            # add a message to the batch
            batch_message.add_message(ServiceBusMessage("Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch"))
        except ValueError:
            # ServiceBusMessageBatch object reaches max_size.
            # New ServiceBusMessageBatch object can be created here to send more data.
            break
    # send the batch of messages to the topic
    sender.send_messages(batch_message)
    print("Sent a batch of 10 messages")

  6. Create a Service Bus client and then a topic sender object to send messages.

    # create a Service Bus client using the connection string
servicebus_client = ServiceBusClient.from_connection_string(conn_str=CONNECTION_STR, logging_enable=True)
with servicebus_client:
    # get a Topic Sender object to send messages to the topic
    sender = servicebus_client.get_topic_sender(topic_name=TOPIC_NAME)
    with sender:
        # send one message        
        send_single_message(sender)
        # send a list of messages
        send_a_list_of_messages(sender)
        # send a batch of messages
        send_batch_message(sender)

print("Done sending messages")
print("-----------------------")

Receive messages from a subscription

Add the following code after the print statement. This code continually receives new messages until it doesn't receive any new messages for 5 (max_wait_time) seconds.

with servicebus_client:
    # get the Subscription Receiver object for the subscription    
    receiver = servicebus_client.get_subscription_receiver(topic_name=TOPIC_NAME, subscription_name=SUBSCRIPTION_NAME, max_wait_time=5)
    with receiver:
        for msg in receiver:
            print("Received: " + str(msg))
            # complete the message so that the message is removed from the subscription
            receiver.complete_message(msg)

Full code

from azure.servicebus import ServiceBusClient, ServiceBusMessage

CONNECTION_STR = "<NAMESPACE CONNECTION STRING>"
TOPIC_NAME = "<TOPIC NAME>"
SUBSCRIPTION_NAME = "<SUBSCRIPTION NAME>"

def send_single_message(sender):
    message = ServiceBusMessage("Single Message")
    sender.send_messages(message)
    print("Sent a single message")

def send_a_list_of_messages(sender):
    messages = [ServiceBusMessage("Message in list") for _ in range(5)]
    sender.send_messages(messages)
    print("Sent a list of 5 messages")

def send_batch_message(sender):
    batch_message = sender.create_message_batch()
    for _ in range(10):
        try:
            batch_message.add_message(ServiceBusMessage("Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch"))
        except ValueError:
            # ServiceBusMessageBatch object reaches max_size.
            # New ServiceBusMessageBatch object can be created here to send more data.
            break
    sender.send_messages(batch_message)
    print("Sent a batch of 10 messages")

servicebus_client = ServiceBusClient.from_connection_string(conn_str=CONNECTION_STR, logging_enable=True)

with servicebus_client:
    sender = servicebus_client.get_topic_sender(topic_name=TOPIC_NAME)
    with sender:
        send_single_message(sender)
        send_a_list_of_messages(sender)
        send_batch_message(sender)

print("Done sending messages")
print("-----------------------")

with servicebus_client:
    receiver = servicebus_client.get_subscription_receiver(topic_name=TOPIC_NAME, subscription_name=SUBSCRIPTION_NAME, max_wait_time=5)
    with receiver:
        for msg in receiver:
            print("Received: " + str(msg))
            receiver.complete_message(msg)

Run the app

When you run the application, you should see the following output:

Sent a single message
Sent a list of 5 messages
Sent a batch of 10 messages
Done sending messages
-----------------------
Received: Single Message
Received: Message in list
Received: Message in list
Received: Message in list
Received: Message in list
Received: Message in list
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch
Received: Message inside a ServiceBusMessageBatch

In the Azure portal, navigate to your Service Bus namespace. On the Overview page, verify that the incoming and outgoing message counts are 16. If you don't see the counts, refresh the page after waiting for a few minutes.

Incoming and outgoing message count

Select the topic in the bottom pane to see the Service Bus Topic page for your topic. On this page, you should see three incoming and three outgoing messages in the Messages chart.

Incoming and outgoing messages

On this page, if you select a subscription, you get to the Service Bus Subscription page. You can see the active message count, dead-letter message count, and more on this page. In this example, all the messages have been received, so the active message count is zero.

Active message count

If you comment out the receive code, you'll see the active message count as 16.

Active message count - no receive

Next steps

See the following documentation and samples: