Message Persistence API for PubNub PHP SDK

Message Persistence provides real-time access to the history of all messages published to PubNub. Each published message is timestamped to the nearest 10 nanoseconds and is stored across multiple availability zones in several geographical locations. Stored messages can be encrypted with AES-256 message encryption, ensuring that they are not readable while stored on PubNub's network. For more information, refer to Message Persistence.

Messages can be stored for a configurable duration or forever, as controlled by the retention policy that is configured on your account. The following options are available: 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or Unlimited.

You can retrieve the following:

• Messages
• Message actions
• File Sharing (using File Sharing API)

History

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal. Read the support page on enabling add-on features on your keys.

This function fetches historical messages of a channel.

It is possible to control how messages are returned and in what order, for example you can:

• Search for messages starting on the newest end of the timeline (default behavior - reverse = false)
• Search for messages from the oldest end of the timeline by setting reverse to true.
• Page through results by providing a start OR end timetoken.
• Retrieve a slice of the time line by providing both a start AND end timetoken.
• Limit the number of messages to a specific quantity using the count parameter.

Start & End parameter usage clarity

If only the start parameter is specified (without end), you will receive messages that are older than and up to that start timetoken value. If only the end parameter is specified (without start) you will receive messages that match that end timetoken value and newer. Specifying values for both start and end parameters will return messages between those timetoken values (inclusive on the end value). Keep in mind that you will still receive a maximum of 100 messages even if there are more messages that meet the timetoken values. Iterative calls to history adjusting the start timetoken is necessary to page through the full set of results if more than 100 messages meet the timetoken values.

Method(s)

To run History you can use the following method(s) in the PHP SDK:

$pubnub->history()
    ->channel(String)
    ->reverse(bool)
    ->includeTimetoken(bool)
    ->start(integer)
    ->end(integer)
    ->count(integer)
    ->sync();

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
channel	String	Yes		Specifies channel to return history messages from.
reverse	Boolean	Optional	false	Setting to true will traverse the time line in reverse starting with the oldest message first.
includeTimetoken	Boolean	Optional	false	Whether event dates timetokens should be included in response or not.
start	Integer	Optional		Timetoken delimiting the start of time slice (exclusive) to pull messages from.
end	Integer	Optional		Timetoken delimiting the end of time slice (inclusive) to pull messages from.
count	Integer	Optional		Specifies the number of historical messages to return.

tip

Using the reverse parameter

Messages are always returned sorted in ascending time direction from history regardless of reverse. The reverse direction matters when you have more than 100 (or count, if it's set) messages in the time interval, in which case reverse determines the end of the time interval from which it should start retrieving the messages.

Basic Usage

Retrieve the last 100 messages on a channel:

$result = $pubnub->history()
              ->channel("history_channel")
              ->count(100)
              ->sync();

Response

The history() operation returns a PNHistoryResult which contains the following operations:

Method	Type	Description
getMessages()	Array	array of messages of type PNHistoryItemResult. See PNHistoryItemResult for more details.
getStartTimetoken()	Integer	Start timetoken.
getEndTimetoken()	Integer	End timetoken.

PNHistoryItemResult

Method	Type	Description
getTimetoken()	Integer	Timetoken of the message.
getEntry()	Object	Message.

Other Examples

Use history() to retrieve the three oldest messages by retrieving from the time line in reverse

$pubnub->history()
    ->channel("my_channel")
    ->count(3)
    ->reverse(true)
    ->sync();

Response

PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult Object(
    [messages:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult:private] => Array(
        [0] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array(
                [a] => 11
                [b] => 22
            )
            [crypto:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] =>
            [timetoken:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => 1111
        )
        [1] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array(
                [a] => 33
                [b] => 44
            )

show all 31 lines

Use history() to retrieve messages newer than a given timetoken by paging from oldest message to newest message starting at a single point in time (exclusive)

$pubnub->history()
    ->channel("my_channel")
    ->start(13847168620721752)
    ->reverse(true)
    ->sync();

Response

PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult Object(
    [messages:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult:private] => Array(
        [0] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array
                (
                    [a] => 11
                    [b] => 22
                )

            [crypto:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] =>
            [timetoken:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => 1111
        )
        [1] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array(
                [a] => 33

show all 36 lines

Use history() to retrieve messages until a given timetoken by paging from newest message to oldest message until a specific end point in time (inclusive)

$pubnub->history()
    ->channel("my_channel")
    ->count(100)
    ->start(-1)
    ->end(13847168819178600)
    ->reverse(true)
    ->sync();

Response

PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult Object(
    [messages:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryResult:private] => Array(
        [0] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array(
                [a] => 11
                [b] => 22
            )

            [crypto:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] =>
            [timetoken:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => 1111
        )
        [1] => PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult Object(
            [entry:PubNub\Models\Consumer\History\PNHistoryItemResult:private] => Array(
                [a] => 33
                [b] => 44

show all 35 lines

Include timetoken in history response

$pubnub->history()
    ->channel("my_channel")
    ->count(100)
    ->includeTimetoken(true)
    ->sync();

Delete Messages from History

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal. Read the support page on enabling add-on features on your keys.

Removes the messages from the history of a specific channel.

Required setting

There is a setting to accept delete from history requests for a key, which you must enable by checking the Enable Delete-From-History checkbox in the key settings for your key in the Admin Portal.

Requires Initialization with secret key.

Method(s)

To Delete Messages from History you can use the following method(s) in the PHP SDK.

$pubnub->deleteMessages()
    ->channel(String)
    ->start(integer)
    ->end(integer)
    ->sync()

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
channel	String	Yes		Specifies channels to delete messages from.
start	Integer	Optional		Timetoken delimiting the start of time slice (inclusive) to delete messages from.
end	Integer	Optional		Timetoken delimiting the end of time slice (exclusive) to delete messages from.

Basic Usage

$pubnub->deleteMessages()
    ->channel("ch")
    ->start(123)
    ->end(456)
    ->sync();

Other Examples

Delete specific message from history

To delete a specific message, pass the publish timetoken (received from a successful publish) in the End parameter and timetoken +/- 1 in the Start parameter. For example, if 15526611838554310 is the publish timetoken, pass 15526611838554309 in Start and 15526611838554310 in End parameters respectively as shown in the following code snippet.

$pubnub->deleteMessages()
    ->channel("ch")
    ->start(15526611838554310)
    ->end(15526611838554309)
    ->sync();

Message Counts

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal. Read the support page on enabling add-on features on your keys.

Returns the number of messages published on one or more channels since a given time. The count returned is the number of messages in history with a timetoken value greater than or equal to than the passed value in the channelsTimetokenparameter.

Unlimited message retention

For keys with unlimited message retention enabled, this method considers only messages published in the last 30 days.

Method(s)

You can use the following method(s) in the PHP SDK:

$pubnub->messageCounts()
    ->channels(array)
    ->channelsTimetoken(array)

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
channels	Array	Yes		The channels to fetch the message count
channelsTimetoken	Array	Yes		Array of timetokens, in order of the channels list. Specify a single timetoken to apply it to all channels. Otherwise, the list of timetokens must be the same length as the list of channels, or the function returns a PNStatuswith an error flag.

Basic Usage

$response = $pubnub->messageCounts()
    ->channels(["mychannel"])
    ->channelsTimetoken(["15513576173381797"])
    ->sync();

print_r($response->getChannels());

Returns

The operation returns a PNMessageCountsResult which contains the following operations

Method	Type	Description
getChannels()	Array	An associative array with channel name as key and messages count as value. Channels without messages have a count of 0. Channels with 10,000 messages or more have a count of 10000.

Other Examples

Retrieve count of messages using different timetokens for each channel

$response = $pubnub->messageCounts()
    ->channels(["mychannel", "another_channel"])
    ->channelsTimetoken(["15513576173381797","15513574291261651"])
    ->sync();

print_r($response->getChannels());