Messages as Interfaces

NServiceBus supports using interfaces as messages to allow multiple inheritance, where one message can inherit from varieties of other messages. This is useful for solving certain message evolution scenarios.

Imagine that the business logic represents a state machine with states X and Y. When the system gets into state X, it publishes the message EnteredStateX. When the system gets into state Y, it publishes the message EnteredStateY. (For more information on how to publish a message, see below.)

In the next version of the system, a new state Z is added, which represents the co-existence of both X and Y states. This can be achieved by defining a message EnteredStateZ which inherits from EnteredStateX and EnteredStateY.

When the system publishes the EnteredStateZ event, the clients that are subscribed to either EnteredStateX or EnteredStateY are notified.

Without the ability to inherit a message from other message types, composition techniques would be required, thereby preventing the infrastructure from automatically routing messages to pre-existing subscribers of the composed messages.

Sending interface messages

Interface messages can be sent using the following syntax:

await endpoint.Send<IMyMessage>(message =>
{
    message.SomeProperty = "Hello world";
}).ConfigureAwait(false);

Replies are supported via:

return context.Reply<IMyReply>(message =>
{
    message.SomeProperty = "Hello world";
});

Publishing interface messages

Interface messages can be published using the following syntax:

return context.Publish<IMyEvent>(message =>
{
    message.SomeProperty = "Hello world";
});

Creating interface messages with IMessageCreator

If an interface message needs to be created before the call to Send or Publish, the IMessageCreator can be used directly to create the message instance:

//IMessageCreator is available via dependency injection
async Task PublishEvent(IMessageCreator messageCreator)
{
    var eventMessage = messageCreator.CreateInstance<IMyEvent>(message =>
    {
        message.SomeProperty = "Hello world";
    });

    await messageSession.Publish(eventMessage);

    //or if on a message handler

    await context.Publish(eventMessage);
}