SELECT send_mesg("orders", "two eggs over easy") ;

Send the message message to all members of group group.

Spread messages a typically multicast, but if group is a private name (rather than a group name) the message is unicast to a single recipient.

SELECT send_mesg("orders", "two eggs over easy", "cook") ;

The three-argument form of send_mesg() sends a "guaranteed" message for a specified member. If the group does not have a member whose name matches group_member, then the function will return false.

In order to send a guaranteed message to a particular group, you must first call track_memberships() with the group name.

In matching group_member against a group's membership list, any leading hash mark is ignored, and group_member is treated as a prefix. For example, the message to "cook" will succeed if Spread will tell you that the "orders" group has a member named "#cook1#host1"

SELECT join_mesg_group("orders");

Join a message group. The message handle returned by this call can be used later in recv_mesg() calls, to get messages; and in calls to mesg_status(); and in leave_mesg_group().

Once you join a group, the Spread daemon on your local machine begins queueing messages for you. You must try to receive them.

SELECT join_mesg_group("orders","cook");

The two-argument form of join_mesg_group() allows you to join "group" with a particular name. (When you use the one-argument form, your name is chosen randomly).

A name supplied here will match the same name when supplied as the group_member argument to send_mesg() (though it may not exactly match the private name used internally by Spread).

SELECT recv_mesg(9);

A call to recv_mesg() will return the next available message on handle. If no message has been queued for delivery, recv_mesg() will block until one arrives.

It is often effective to call recv_mesg() from within SQL stored procedure code, inside a loop.

SELECT track_memberships("orders");

A call to track_memberships() causes MySQL to pay attention to the the membership list of group, making it possible to then send guaranteed messages to group from this server using the three-argument form of send_mesg().

The message handle returned from the track_memberships() call can be passed to mesg_status(), allowing you to view a group's membership list and other statistics. It can also be passed to leave_mesg_group(), which will cause membership tracking for group to end.

SELECT leave_mesg_group(9);

The leave_mesg_group() call takes an integer handle which was created by calling either join_mesg_group() or track_memberships().

If the message handle was created by track_memberships(), membership tracking for the group will cease.

If the handle was created by join_mesg_group(), this call signals your intent to leave the group. It is important to note that calling leave_mesg_group() does not immediately disconnect you from the group. There may be messages already received and being held in the message queue, along with other messages already sent but not yet received at the time of your call to leave_mesg_group(). After calling leave_mesg_group() on a particular handle, you should continue to call recv_mesg() on that handle until recv_mesg() returns NULL. The NULL return will indicate that you have received all pending messages and succesfully disconnected.

SELECT mesg_handle("track = orders");
SELECT mesg_handle("join = orders");
SELECT mesg_handle("name = #cook#localhost");

SELECT mesg_handle("track = orders") into mh;
IF mh IS NULL
THEN SELECT track_memberships("orders") into mh;
END IF;

SELECT leave_mesg_group(mesg_handle("track = orders"));

The mesg_handle() call provides a way for SQL code in stored routines or scheduled events to use the message API calls without any advance knowledge of open message handles. The call takes a simple query, as a quoted string, and returns a message handle matching the query or NULL to indicate no match.

For a query "track = groupname", the value returned is the message handle associated with a prior call to track_memberships("groupname").

For a query "join = groupname", the returned handle is a member of group groupname after a prior call to join_mesg_group(), and can be used in recv_mesg(). (If multiple message handles are members of groupname, only one handle will be returned).

For a query "name = privatename", the handle returned has the Spread private name privatename. This can be either the complete private name, or the shorter name as it was supplied in join_mesg_group().

SELECT mesg_status() \G
SELECT mesg_status(9) \G

mesg_status() returns a block of text describing the status of a message handle. If no handle is specified, the text describes all handles, as well as some global status information on the message API.

The output includes statistics on the number of messages sent and received, the private names of each connection, the names of all members of any groups being tracked, and other information useful for debugging and performance tuning.

Using the command-line mysql client, the status message is easiest to read if the mesg_status() query is terminated with the \G delimiter to format the output vertically.