Editing Message queue (section)

{{Short description|Means of interprocess communication in software engineering}}
{{redirects|Mailbox (computing)|the file format|Mbox}}
{{Refimprove|date=May 2009}}
In [[computer science]], '''message queues''' and '''mailboxes''' are [[Software engineering|software-engineering]] [[software componentry|components]] typically used for [[inter-process communication]] (IPC), or for inter-[[thread (computing)|thread]] communication within the same process. They use a [[Queue (data structure)|queue]] for [[Message (computer science)|messaging]]&nbsp;– the passing of control or of content.  [[Group communication system]]s provide similar kinds of functionality.

The message queue paradigm is a sibling of the [[Publish–subscribe pattern|publisher/subscriber]] pattern, and is typically one part of a larger [[message-oriented middleware]] system. Most messaging systems support both the publisher/subscriber and message queue models in their [[application programming interface|API]], e.g. [[Java Message Service]] (JMS).

Competing Consumers pattern enables multiple concurrent consumers to process messages on the same message queue. <ref>{{Cite book |last=Gorton |first=Ian |title=Foundations of Scalable Systems |publisher=O'Reilly Media |isbn=9781098106034}}</ref>