Topic strings
Label information you publish as a topic using a topic string. Subscribe to groups of topics using either character or topic based wildcard topic strings.
Topics
A topic string is a character string that identifies the topic of a publish/subscribe message. You can use any characters you like when you construct a topic string.Three characters have special meaning in version 7 publish/subscribe. They are allowed anywhere in a topic string, but use them with caution. The use of the special characters is explained in Topic-based wildcard scheme.
- A forward slash (
/
) -
The topic level separator. Use the
'/'
character to structure the topic into a topic tree.Avoid empty topic levels,
'//'
, if you can. These correspond to nodes in the topic hierarchy with no topic string. A leading or trailing'/'
in a topic string corresponds to a leading or trailing empty node and should be avoided too. - The hash sign (
#
) -
Used in combination with
'/'
to construct a multilevel wildcard in subscriptions. Take care using'#'
adjacent to'/'
in topic strings used to name published topics. Examples of topic strings shows a sensible use of'#'
.The strings
'.../#/...'
,'#/...'
and'.../#'
have a special meaning in subscription topic strings. The strings match all topics at one or more levels in the topic hierarchy. Thus if you created a topic with one of those sequences, you could not subscribe to it, without also subscribing to all topics at multiple levels in the topic hierarchy. - The plus sign (
+
) -
Used in combination with
'/'
to construct a single-level wildcard in subscriptions. Take care using'+'
adjacent to'/'
in topic strings used to name published topics.The strings
'.../+/...'
,'+/...'
and'.../+'
have a special meaning in subscription topic strings. The strings match all topics at one level in the topic hierarchy. Thus if you created a topic with one of those sequences, you could not subscribe to it, without also subscribing to all topics at one level in the topic hierarchy.
Examples of topic strings
IBM/Business Area#/Results
IBM/Diversity/%African American