Making Query API requests

In this section you learn how to construct an Amazon SQS endpoint, make GET and POST requests and interpret responses.

Topics

• Constructing an endpoint
• Making a GET request
• Making a POST request
• Authenticating requests
• Interpreting responses

Constructing an endpoint

In order to work with Amazon SQS queues, you must construct an endpoint. For information about Amazon SQS endpoints, see the following pages in the Amazon Web Services General Reference:

• Regional endpoints

• Amazon Simple Queue Service endpoints and quotas

Every Amazon SQS endpoint is independent. For example, if two queues are named MyQueue and one has the endpoint sqs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com while the other has the endpoint sqs.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com, the two queues don't share any data with each other.

The following is an example of an endpoint which makes a request to create a queue.

https://sqs.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/   
?Action=CreateQueue
&DefaultVisibilityTimeout=40
&QueueName=MyQueue
&Version=2012-11-05
&AUTHPARAMS

Note

Queue names and queue URLs are case-sensitive.

The structure of AUTHPARAMS depends on the signature of the API request. For more information, see Signing AWS API Requests in the Amazon Web Services General Reference.

Making a GET request

An Amazon SQS GET request is structured as a URL which consists of the following:

• Endpoint – The resource that the request is acting on (the queue name and URL), for example: https://sqs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/123456789012/MyQueue

• Action – The action that you want to perform on the endpoint. A question mark (?) separates the endpoint from the action, for example: ?Action=SendMessage&MessageBody=Your%20Message%20Text

• Parameters – Any request parameters—each parameter is separated by an ampersand (&), for example: &Version=2012-11-05&AUTHPARAMS

The following is an example of a GET request that sends a message to an Amazon SQS queue.

https://sqs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/123456789012/MyQueue
?Action=SendMessage&MessageBody=Your%20message%20text
&Version=2012-11-05
&AUTHPARAMS

Note

Queue names and queue URLs are case-sensitive.

Because GET requests are URLs, you must URL-encode all parameter values. Because spaces aren't allowed in URLs, each space is URL-encoded as %20. (The rest of the example isn't URL-encoded to make it easier to read.)

Making a POST request

An Amazon SQS POST request sends query parameters as a form in the body of an HTTP request.

The following is an example of a HTTP header with Content-Type set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

POST /123456789012/MyQueue HTTP/1.1
Host: sqs.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

The header is followed by a form-urlencoded POST request that sends a message to an Amazon SQS queue. Each parameter is separated by an ampersand (&).

Action=SendMessage
&MessageBody=Your+Message+Text
&Expires=2020-10-15T12%3A00%3A00Z
&Version=2012-11-05
&AUTHPARAMS

Note

Only the Content-Type HTTP header is required. The AUTHPARAMS is the same as for the GET request.

Your HTTP client might add other items to the HTTP request, according to the client's HTTP version.