Different export and import features

QueueExplorer has three different ways of exporting messages and importing them back. Each of them comes with different pros and cons.

Why do we have three different ways? Main problem is that messages are complex - they are not just a message body, they have a bunch of other properties, headers, labels, ids, timestamps, etc. So issue is how to save (or not) these other parts of message.

Save/Load messages

Save functionality saves complete messages with all available properties. It uses QueueExplorer’s internal .mq file format, with following features:

Pros:

• full message with all properties
• multiple messages in single .mq file
• all kinds of messages, including binary
• compressed

Cons:

• .mq file is a binary file which you can’t edit or read easily.

Export/import bodies

Export body saves just body as it is (text or binary) to a file. However, nothing of other message fields is saved, except that something minimal can be saved as a file name.

Pros:

• message body is directly available for reading or modification.

Cons:

• single message per file
• no other message properties are saved

Export/import CSV

CSV (comma separated values) is human readable format, also convenient for manipulation (e.g. using Excel).

Pros:

• multiple messages in single file
• easily readable
• can be modified

Cons:

• binary messages might not be preserved correctly, since content is transfered to UTF8
• potentially large files