Data Serialization

So far we've been using JSON to serialize our messages. "Serialization" is a fancy way to say "convert our struct into a format to be sent over the network". JSON is often a great choice because it's human-readable, easy to work with, and widely supported.

When you run into a problem, you can view the raw message in the Rabbit UI and read it. However, AMQP doesn't require you to use JSON, it works with raw bytes.

JSON isn't the most efficient way to serialize data, so when you're sending massive amounts of data, you might want to consider a more efficient format.

MessagePack

With TypeScript, we can use MessagePack to serialize our data. MessagePack is a binary format that is more efficient than JSON. It's faster to encode and decode, and it uses less space.

MessagePack is a binary format, so it's not human-readable. However, it is widely supported in many programming languages

Assignment

Install the msgpack package:

npm install @msgpack/msgpack

In src/internal/pubsub/publish.ts, add a new function publishMsgPack that serializes the message using MessagePack encode and publishes it to the RabbitMQ exchange.
1. It should be similar to the publishJSON function you created previously, but it will use MessagePack for serialization instead of JSON.
2. Set the contentType option to application/x-msgpack.

export function publishMsgPack<T>(
  ch: ConfirmChannel,
  exchange: string,
  routingKey: string,
  value: T,
): Promise<void>;