Managing messages

Managing and editing messages is performed through the View Message Pane, which displays messages for Local Queues, Model Queues and Cluster Queues. It contains a range of view and edit options, and specific operations that include copying, moving, saving and additional actions.

You can access the View Message pane from Summary Views for the Local, Model, Alias, and Cluster queue types and when editing a queue from within its Properties View.

To access the View Message pane:

In the procedure below Local Queues is used as an example.

Once a Queue Manager is selected, click Local Queues from the Navigation pane to display the list of Local Queues.
Identify a queue whose messages you want to view and click on the queue icon next to the queue name, or the CurrentQDepth value link.

Note
When viewing messages by clicking the icon next to the queue name, the Current Queue Depth needs to be displayed with the Summary View; this option will not be available when using a user-defined layout where Current Queue Depth was not selected as a displayed property. In this case, you need to either adjust your layout to include this property or you need to edit the queue and invoke View Messages from within the queue's Properties View.
The Messages for Queue... pane is displayed, and the twenty most recent messages are shown, including the Message Data column which shows the first 80 bytes of the message data.
At this point, you can select from one of a number of generic options that appear above the Messages list and from operations adjacent to each specific message.
Because of their detail, both options and operations are described in Generic Message Pane Options and Message Pane Operations below.

Generic Message Pane options

The following options are available from the top of the Messages for Queue... pane. Each of the options are accessed from the Messages toolbar, shown below:

New: Displays the New Message dialog to create and put a new message onto the queue.
Upload/Import: Displays the Upload dialog, to upload a message that was saved to a file, and import it into the queue. You can upload three types of file: a BMM Administration Message File, a File as a Single Message, or a File as Multiple Messages (with each message's data separated on a new line).
Move messages: Displays the Move Message dialog for moving messages from one queue to another queue on the same queue manager.
Copy Messages: Displays the Copy Message dialog for copying messages from one queue to another queue on the same queue manager.
Save To File: Enables you to save messages as a file (in .json format). You can also specify Data Only and then can save in the following formats: Delimited File, Zip Archive, Multiple Files (all of these data formats are readable). Note that the message data is saved in a human-legible format, meaning no compression or encoding, if the MQMD Format value is MQSTR.
Delete Messages: Displays the Delete Message dialog, facilitates deleting multiple messages from the queue.
Find Messages: Displays the Search Details dialog in which you can search for specific messages.
Cancel: Returns the display to the previous Queue Summary view.
Expand All: Expands (and collapses) each of the current messages displayed in the message browser.
CSV Export: Creates a CSV file of the messages displayed in the message browser.
Auto-refresh timer: This refresh timer is by default set to 'off' but can be configured to run according to your requirements by clicking the arrow icon and selecting 5, 10 or 30 minutes. Note that this option re-fetches the data that is currently available in a snapshot so the view may not appear different if the actual snapshot routine is on a different schedule.
Refresh: Immediately refreshes the contents of the message browser.
Default message size (bytes) [#] - This box allows you to specify the maximum size of the message data that will be displayed when you expand the message details.

In addition, next to and just below the search box, there are additional navigational tools that enable you to browse messages page by page (messages are displayed 20 to a page by default).

Browse messages...: Moves the displayed messages to the next or previous 20 messages.
Go to: (Only displayed if there are more messages than configured to be displayed) Click this to use one of the following options:
- Message Number: Specify the number of a message that you want to see. This displays the message set (of 20 messages) in which the specific message is contained.
- Set Size: Change the number of messages that are displayed. Note that this setting is NOT retained, and must be set each time you access the message browsing feature.

Individual Message Property Fields that are displayed are; Operations, Select box (for selecting multiple messages), Index, Put Date/Time, Put Application, Size (Bytes), Format, Code Page, Encoding, Message Id.

Message Pane operations

Summary view operations available from the Operations drop-down menu include:

Edit: Brings up the detailed properties of the selected message. The message properties and body can be modified and saved back to the queue. Refer to the Edit Message Dialog section for details.
Message Clipboard: Displays the selected message's contents in text format (a JSON representation of the message which also includes all headers), which can then be pasted elsewhere. Use your keyboard to copy and paste as required into other messages.
Copy to Queue: Displays the Copy Message Dialog, facilitates copying message from one queue to another queue on the same queue manager.
Move to Queue: Displays the Move Message dialog for moving this message from one queue to another queue on the same queue manager.
Save to File: Displays the Save To File dialog, facilitates saving the message to a file. Note that the files will be readable in text format if defined accordingly.
Delete: Deletes this message from the queue after confirmation.

Expand Message Details

On the message Summary View each message has a + icon that can be used to expand a view only display of the message details (includes header and body data).

Note

Supported headers are MQDLH, MQRFH, MQRFH2, MQXQH and MQIIH.

To expand all the messages in the current browser view, click Expand All on the Messages toolbar.