Perform common operations with the Event Hubs client library

• 3 minutes

This unit contains examples of common operations you can perform with the Event Hubs client library (Azure.Messaging.EventHubs) to interact with an Event Hubs.

Inspect Event Hubs

Many Event Hubs operations take place within the scope of a specific partition. Because Event Hubs owns the partitions, their names are assigned at the time of creation. To understand what partitions are available, you query the Event Hubs using one of the Event Hubs clients. For illustration, the EventHubProducerClient is demonstrated in these examples, but the concept and form are common across clients.

var connectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE >>";
var eventHubName = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB >>";

await using (var producer = new EventHubProducerClient(connectionString, eventHubName))
{
    string[] partitionIds = await producer.GetPartitionIdsAsync();
}

Publish events to Event Hubs

In order to publish events, you need to create an EventHubProducerClient. Producers publish events in batches and might request a specific partition, or allow the Event Hubs service to decide which partition events should be published to. We recommended using automatic routing when the publishing of events needs to be highly available or when event data should be distributed evenly among the partitions. Our example takes advantage of automatic routing.

var connectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE >>";
var eventHubName = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB >>";

await using (var producer = new EventHubProducerClient(connectionString, eventHubName))
{
    using EventDataBatch eventBatch = await producer.CreateBatchAsync();
    eventBatch.TryAdd(new EventData(new BinaryData("First")));
    eventBatch.TryAdd(new EventData(new BinaryData("Second")));

    await producer.SendAsync(eventBatch);
}

Read events from an Event Hubs

In order to read events from an Event Hubs, you need to create an EventHubConsumerClient for a given consumer group. When an Event Hubs is created, it provides a default consumer group that can be used to get started with exploring Event Hubs. In our example, we focus on reading all events published to the Event Hubs using an iterator.

var connectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE >>";
var eventHubName = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB >>";

string consumerGroup = EventHubConsumerClient.DefaultConsumerGroupName;

await using (var consumer = new EventHubConsumerClient(consumerGroup, connectionString, eventHubName))
{
    using var cancellationSource = new CancellationTokenSource();
    cancellationSource.CancelAfter(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(45));

    await foreach (PartitionEvent receivedEvent in consumer.ReadEventsAsync(cancellationSource.Token))
    {
        // At this point, the loop will wait for events to be available in the Event Hub. When an event
        // is available, the loop will iterate with the event that was received. Because we did not
        // specify a maximum wait time, the loop will wait forever unless cancellation is requested using
        // the cancellation token.
    }
}

Read events from an Event Hubs partition

To read from a specific partition, the consumer needs to specify where in the event stream to begin receiving events. In our example, we focus on reading all published events for the first partition of the Event Hubs.

var connectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE >>";
var eventHubName = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB >>";

string consumerGroup = EventHubConsumerClient.DefaultConsumerGroupName;

await using (var consumer = new EventHubConsumerClient(consumerGroup, connectionString, eventHubName))
{
    EventPosition startingPosition = EventPosition.Earliest;
    string partitionId = (await consumer.GetPartitionIdsAsync()).First();

    using var cancellationSource = new CancellationTokenSource();
    cancellationSource.CancelAfter(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(45));

    await foreach (PartitionEvent receivedEvent in consumer.ReadEventsFromPartitionAsync(partitionId, startingPosition, cancellationSource.Token))
    {
        // At this point, the loop will wait for events to be available in the partition. When an event
        // is available, the loop will iterate with the event that was received. Because we did not
        // specify a maximum wait time, the loop will wait forever unless cancellation is requested using
        // the cancellation token.
    }
}

Process events using an Event Processor client

For most production scenarios, the recommendation is to use EventProcessorClient for reading and processing events. Since the EventProcessorClient has a dependency on Azure Storage blobs for persistence of its state, you need to provide a BlobContainerClient for the processor, which has been configured for the storage account and container that should be used.

var cancellationSource = new CancellationTokenSource();
cancellationSource.CancelAfter(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(45));

var storageConnectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE STORAGE ACCOUNT >>";
var blobContainerName = "<< NAME OF THE BLOB CONTAINER >>";

var eventHubsConnectionString = "<< CONNECTION STRING FOR THE EVENT HUBS NAMESPACE >>";
var eventHubName = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB >>";
var consumerGroup = "<< NAME OF THE EVENT HUB CONSUMER GROUP >>";

Task processEventHandler(ProcessEventArgs eventArgs) => Task.CompletedTask;
Task processErrorHandler(ProcessErrorEventArgs eventArgs) => Task.CompletedTask;

var storageClient = new BlobContainerClient(storageConnectionString, blobContainerName);
var processor = new EventProcessorClient(storageClient, consumerGroup, eventHubsConnectionString, eventHubName);

processor.ProcessEventAsync += processEventHandler;
processor.ProcessErrorAsync += processErrorHandler;

await processor.StartProcessingAsync();

try
{
    // The processor performs its work in the background; block until cancellation
    // to allow processing to take place.

    await Task.Delay(Timeout.Infinite, cancellationSource.Token);
}
catch (TaskCanceledException)
{
    // This is expected when the delay is canceled.
}

try
{
    await processor.StopProcessingAsync();
}
finally
{
    // To prevent leaks, the handlers should be removed when processing is complete.

    processor.ProcessEventAsync -= processEventHandler;
    processor.ProcessErrorAsync -= processErrorHandler;
}