Topic
A topic is a named messaging destination or stream to which producers publish messages or records and from which consumers receive or read them.
Apache Kafka in Action
A Kafka topic is a named stream of records to which producers publish and from which consumers read.
- How it is used
- Organizes producer-published records into named streams that independent consumers can read for real-time processing or later analysis.
- How deep it goes
- Works through creation and reading, then connects topics to partitions, replication, and leader metadata without detailing their implementations.
- Examples
- Uses a product-price changelog, Kafka command-line tools, and separate inventory and sales-analysis consumers.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure it with kafka-topics.sh, then publish and independently reread price updates with Kafka console tools.
Kafka for Architects
A Kafka topic is a named, append-oriented stream of records that Kafka stores and makes available to consumers.
- How it is used
- Uses topics to route related messages between producers and consumers and to separate event types in a customer-data workflow.
- How deep it goes
- Explains naming, subscriptions, partitions, ordering, retention and compaction, including the limits of cross-partition order and key lookup.
- Examples
- Uses separate transaction and profile topics for a customer dashboard and a compacted account-balance topic for current state.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure Kafka topics by choosing keys, partitioning and retention policies to meet ordering, history and current-state needs.
Kafka Streams in Action, Second Edition
A Kafka topic is a named, append-only stream of records that producers publish to and consumers read from.
- How it is used
- Connects producers and independent consumers through durable event storage for event-streaming applications.
- How deep it goes
- Explains topic storage, partitions, replication, ordering, local creation, and consumer polling; defers prior Schema Registry detail.
- Examples
- Uses retail sales, rewards, sales trends, inventory, and keyed login-search-purchase clickstream events.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure topics locally, then produce and poll records through Kafka clients.
Read how Kafka Streams in Action, Second Edition explains topic →
AI-Powered Developer: Build software with ChatGPT and Copilot
A Kafka topic is a named, partitioned stream to which producers publish records and from which consumers read them.
- How it is used
- Deploys topics as event streams connecting producers, consumers, and domain updates in an asset-monitoring application.
- How deep it goes
- Demonstrates creation, console operations, Python consumption, JSON records, and architectural review, but does not detail Kafka internals.
- Examples
- Uses the asset_location topic, location-update JSON records, console commands, and a Python KafkaConsumer.
- What you can do after
- Operate/configure a local topic, publish and consume records, and evaluate generated consumer code for coupling and correctness.
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Digital Twins in Action
An MQTT topic is a hierarchical name used to route published messages to clients that subscribe to matching topic names.
- How it is used
- Routes sensor messages from publishers to subscribed consumers in a home digital twin’s unified MQTT message bus.
- How deep it goes
- Defines topics and develops a four-level naming convention with subscription examples; leaves payload interpretation to a separate decoder.
- Examples
- Uses hierarchical home sensor names, a Python publish-and-subscribe listing, and a bedroom sensor’s encoded message.
- What you can do after
- Build it from scratch: name sensor streams hierarchically and select messages through topic subscriptions.
Related concepts
- partitionhas part · A partition is a distinct subdivision of a larger data, storage, or work unit that can be stored, managed, or processed separately.
- persistent queryproduced by · A persistent query is a server-side ksqlDB query whose continuously computed results are stored in a Kafka topic for later consumption.
- sink nodeused by · A sink node is a terminal or receiving component in a data or flow system that accepts incoming data, messages, or flow for consumption, processing, or storage.
- kafka-console-consumerused by · kafka-console-consumer is an Apache Kafka command-line utility that reads records from topics or partitions and prints them to the console.
- publish/subscribe modelimplements · The publish-subscribe model is a messaging pattern in which publishers send messages without addressing specific recipients, and subscribers receive messages according to their interests or subscriptions.
- replication factorconfigured by · A replication factor is the configured number of copies maintained for each replicated data item or resource.
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