Publish/Subscribe Model

What is publish/subscribe (pub/sub) model ?

The publish/subscribe (pub/sub) model is a messaging pattern in which publishers send messages to a message broker, and subscribers express interest in receiving certain messages. The message broker is responsible for delivering the messages to the subscribed clients.

In the pub/sub model, publishers and subscribers are decoupled, meaning that they do not need to be aware of each other’s existence in order to communicate. This allows for a more flexible and scalable system, as publishers and subscribers can be added or removed without affecting the others.

Pub/sub systems can be implemented using a variety of technologies, such as message queues, event buses, and topic-based publish/subscribe systems. They are commonly used in distributed systems, microservices architectures, and event-driven architectures.

What are ‘topics’ in pub/sub?

In a publish/subscribe system, topics are used to categorize messages and allow subscribers to express interest in specific types of messages.

In a topic-based publish/subscribe system, publishers send messages to specific topics, and subscribers express interest in one or more topics. The message broker is responsible for delivering the messages to the subscribed clients.

For example, in a news publishing system, there may be topics for different categories of news, such as politics, sports, and entertainment. Subscribers can express interest in receiving messages from specific topics, such as only sports and entertainment. When a publisher sends a message to the sports topic, it will be delivered to all subscribers interested in that topic.

Using topics allows for more fine-grained control over the messages that are delivered to subscribers, as they can choose to receive only the messages that are relevant to them. It also allows for a more scalable system, as publishers and subscribers do not need to be aware of each other’s specific identities.

Events in pub/sub

Events are messages that are published by a publisher and delivered to subscribed clients.

An event is typically a notification of something that has happened or is about to happen. It can contain data about the event, such as the event type, a description, and any relevant details.

In an event-driven architecture, events are used to trigger actions or behaviors in other parts of the system. For example, an event might be used to notify a service that a new user has signed up, or that a payment has been processed. The service can then respond to the event by performing some action, such as sending a welcome email or updating a database.

Using events allows for a more flexible and scalable system, as publishers and subscribers do not need to be directly coupled and can communicate asynchronously. It also allows for a more decoupled and modular system, as components can respond to events without the need to be aware of the specific identities of the publishers.

Event Bus

An event bus is a messaging system that allows publishers to send events to subscribers. It is a type of publish/subscribe system that is commonly used in event-driven architectures.

In an event bus, events are published to a central message broker, which is responsible for delivering the events to the subscribed clients. Subscribers express interest in receiving events by registering with the event bus and specifying a list of events that they want to receive.

Example of pub/sub model in python

Example1: Basic publish/subscribe model implemented using Python’s built-in queue module:

Here the Publisher class has a message queue and a list of subscribers. When a message is published using the publish method, it is added to the queue and delivered to all subscribed clients by calling their receive method. The Subscriber class has a receive method that simply prints the received message.

import queue

class Publisher:
    def __init__(self):
        self.message_queue = queue.Queue()
        self.subscribers = []

    def subscribe(self, subscriber):
        self.subscribers.append(subscriber)

    def publish(self, message):
        self.message_queue.put(message)
        for subscriber in self.subscribers:
            subscriber.receive(message)

class Subscriber:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

    def receive(self, message):
        print(f"{self.name} received message: {message}")

# Example usage
publisher = Publisher()

subscriber_1 = Subscriber("Subscriber 1")
subscriber_2 = Subscriber("Subscriber 2")

publisher.subscribe(subscriber_1)
publisher.subscribe(subscriber_2)

publisher.publish("Hello World")
# Output:
# "Subscriber 1 received message: Hello World"
# "Subscriber 2 received message: Hello World"

Example2: Publish/Subscribe model implemented using Python’s threading module, the Event class, and a dictionary to store subscribers by topic :

import threading

class Publisher:
    def __init__(self):
        self.subscribers = {}

    def subscribe(self, subscriber, topic):
        if topic not in self.subscribers:
            self.subscribers[topic] = []
        self.subscribers[topic].append(subscriber)

    def publish(self, message, topic):
        if topic in self.subscribers:
            for subscriber in self.subscribers[topic]:
                subscriber.event.set()
                subscriber.message = message

class Subscriber:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name
        self.event = threading.Event()
        self.message = None

    def receive(self):
        self.event.wait()
        print(f"{self.name} received message: {self.message}")
        self.event.clear()

# Example usage
publisher = Publisher()

subscriber_1 = Subscriber("Subscriber 1")
subscriber_2 = Subscriber("Subscriber 2")
subscriber_3 = Subscriber("Subscriber 3")

publisher.subscribe(subscriber_1, "sports")
publisher.subscribe(subscriber_2, "entertainment")
publisher.subscribe(subscriber_3, "sports")

publisher.publish("Soccer match result", "sports")
# Output:
# "Subscriber 1 received message: Soccer match result"
# "Subscriber 3 received message: Soccer match result

In this example, the Publisher class has a dictionary of subscribers, where the keys are topics and the values are lists of subscribers. The subscribe method adds a subscriber to the list for the specified topic. The publish method checks if there are any subscribers for the specified topic and, if there are, sets the event and stores the message for each subscriber. The Subscriber class and receive method are the same as in the previous example.

This implementation allows subscribers to express interest in specific topics and receive only the messages that are relevant to them. It also allows the publisher to publish messages to specific topics without needing to be aware of the specific identities of the subscribers.