Message Actions API for Ruby SDK

Add or remove actions on published messages to build features like receipts, reactions, or to associate custom metadata to messages. Clients can subscribe to a channel to receive message action events on that channel. They can also fetch past message actions from Message Persistence independently or when they fetch original messages.

Message Actions vs. Message Reactions

Message Actions is the flexible, low-level API for adding any metadata to messages (read receipts, delivery confirmations, custom data), while Message Reactions specifically refers to using Message Actions for emoji/social reactions.

In PubNub Core and Chat SDKs, the same underlying Message Actions API is referred to as Message Reactions when used for emoji reactions - it's the same functionality, just different terminology depending on the use case.

Add Message Action

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal.

Add an action on a published message. Returns the added action in the response.

Method(s)

To add a message action, you can use the following method(s) in the Ruby SDK:

add_message_action(
    channel: channel,
    type: type,
    value: value,
    message_timetoken: message_timetoken,
    http_sync: http_sync,
    callback: callback
)

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: String Default: n/a	Name of channel which stores the message for which action should be added.
type * Type: String Default: n/a	What feature this message action represents. Maximum 15 characters.
value * Type: String Default: n/a	Value to be added with message action type.
message_timetoken * Type: Integer Default: n/a	Timetoken of message to which action should be added.
http_sync Type: Boolean Default: false	If set to true, this method is executed synchronously and returns an array of envelopes (even if there's only one envelope).
callback Type: Lambda accepting one parameter Default: n/a	The callback that's called for each envelope. For async methods, a Future is returned. To retrieve the value of the envelope object, you have to call the value method (the thread is locked until the value is returned).

Basic Usage

Reference code

This example is a self-contained code snippet ready to be run. It includes necessary imports and executes methods with console logging. Use it as a reference when working with other examples in this document.

require 'pubnub'

def add_message_action(pubnub)
  puts "Adding message action..."
  pubnub.add_message_action(
    channel: 'chat',
    type: 'emotion',
    value: 'smile',
    message_timetoken: 16701562382648731
  ) do |envelope|
    if envelope.status[:error]
      puts "Error adding message action: #{envelope.status[:data]}"
    else
      puts "Message action added successfully:"
      puts "Type: #{envelope.result[:data][:type]}"

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Response

#<Pubnub::Envelope
    @result = {
        :data => {
            :type => "emotion",
            :value => "smile",
            :uuid => "sender-uuid",
            :action_timetoken => 16701656660127890,
            :message_timetoken => 16701562382648731
        }
    },
    @status = {
        :code => 200
    }
>

Remove Message Action

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal.

Remove a previously added action on a published message. Returns an empty response.

Method(s)

To remove a message action, you can use the following method(s) in the Ruby SDK:

remove_message_action(
    channel: channel,
    message_timetoken: message_timetoken,
    action_timetoken: action_timetoken,
    http_sync: http_sync,
    callback: callback
)

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: String Default: n/a	Name of channel which store message for which action should be removed.
message_timetoken * Type: Integer Default: n/a	Timetoken of message to which action should be removed.
action_timetoken * Type: Integer Default: n/a	Message action addition timetoken.
http_sync Type: Boolean Default: false	If set to true, this method is executed synchronously and returns an array of envelopes (even if there's only one envelope).
callback Type: Lambda accepting one parameter Default: n/a	The callback that's called for each envelope. For async methods, a Future is returned. To retrieve the value of the envelope object, you have to call the value method (the thread is locked until the value is returned).

Basic Usage

pubnub.add_message_action(
    channel: 'chat',
    message_timetoken: 16701562382648731,
    action_timetoken: 16701656660127890
) do |envelope|
    puts envelope
end

Response

#<Pubnub::Envelope
    @status = {
        :code => 200,
        :category => :ack,
        :error => false,
    }
>

Get Message Actions

Requires Message Persistence

This method requires that Message Persistence is enabled for your key in the Admin Portal.

Get a list of message actions in a channel. Returns a list of actions sorted by the action's timetoken in ascending order.

Method(s)

To get message actions, you can use the following method(s) in the Ruby SDK:

get_message_actions(
    channel: channel,
    start: start,
    end: end,
    limit: limit,
    http_sync: http_sync,
    callback: callback
)

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: String Default: n/a	Name of channel from which list of message actions should be retrieved.
start Type: Integer Default: n/a	Return values will be less than start.
end Type: Integer Default: n/a	Return values will be greater than or equal to end.
limit Type: Integer Default: n/a	Number of messages actions to return in response.
http_sync Type: Boolean Default: false	If set to true, this method is executed synchronously and returns an array of envelopes (even if there's only one envelope).
callback Type: Lambda accepting one parameter Default: n/a	The callback that's called for each envelope. For async methods, a Future is returned. To retrieve the value of the envelope object, you have to call the value method (the thread is locked until the value is returned).

Basic Usage

pubnub.get_message_actions(
    channel: 'chat',
    start: 16701562382648731,
    end: 16701562382348728
) do |envelope|
    puts envelope
end

Response

#<Pubnub::Envelope
    @result = {
        :data => {
            :message_actions => [
                {
                    :type => "emotion_type_2",
                    :uuid => "sender-uuid-1",
                    :value => "surprised",
                    :message_timetoken => 16703307481706612,
                    :action_timetoken => 16703307649086202,
                },
                {
                    :type => "emotion_type_3",
                    :uuid => "sender-uuid-2",
                    :value => "lol",

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