Send and receive messages

You can use PubNub's functionality via Blueprints or directly in C++ code.

• In Blueprints, you can access PubNub from any Widget or Actor. Start by initializing chat using InitChat on UPubnubChatSubsystem. Afterwards, you can use the returned UPubnubChat object reference to call all Chat SDK functions.

Blueprint functions

The Blueprints provided in the documentation show how you can structure your application and may contain utility methods and elements like buttons that are not part of the Unreal Chat SDK and are meant to serve as guidance.

• In C++, you can use UPubnubChatSubsystem as any other Game Instance Subsystem.

  1
  

  Chat now allows you to call all Chat SDK functions, for example, Chat->GetChannel("my_channel").

Usage in Blueprints and C++

Asynchronous and synchronous method execution

Most PubNub Unreal SDK methods are available in both asynchronous and synchronous variants.

• Asynchronous methods (Async suffix) return void and take an optional delegate parameter that fires when the operation completes.

  1Channel->SendTextAsync("Hello", OnSendTextResponseDelegate, SendTextParams);

  You can also use native callbacks that accept lambdas instead of dynamic delegates. Native callback types have the Native suffix (for example, FOnPubnubChatOperationResponseNative).

• Synchronous methods (no suffix) block the main game thread until the operation completes and return a result struct directly.

  1FPubnubChatOperationResult Result = Channel->SendText("Hello", SendTextParams);

Requires Message Persistence

Enable Message Persistence on your keyset in the Admin Portal to store messages.

Send

Use SendText() to send a message to a channel. The method handles text content, metadata, user mentions, and channel references.

Method signature

C++ / Input parameters

1Channel->SendText(
2    FString Message,
3    FPubnubChatSendTextParams SendTextParams = FPubnubChatSendTextParams()
4);

Blueprint

Input parameters

* required

Parameter	Description
Message * Type: FString Default: n/a	Text that you want to send to the selected channel.
SendTextParams Type: FPubnubChatSendTextParams Default: n/a	Struct providing additional parameters.
→ StoreInHistory Type: bool Default: true	If true, the messages are stored in Message Persistence. If StoreInHistory is not specified, the Message Persistence configuration specified on the Admin Portal keyset is used.
→ SendByPost Type: bool Default: false	When true, the SDK uses HTTP POST to publish the messages. The message is sent in the BODY of the request instead of the query string when HTTP GET is used. The messages are also compressed to reduce their size.
→ Meta Type: FString Default: n/a	Publish additional details with the request.

Sending quoted messages

SendText() does not expose quoting directly. To send a quoted message, use a MessageDraft: call MessageDraft->SetQuotedMessage(QuotedMessage) before Draft->Send().

Output

Type	Description
FPubnubChatOperationResult	Result of the operation. Check Error and ErrorMessage for failure.

Sample code

Reference code

This example is a self-contained code snippet ready to be run. Set up your Unreal project and follow the instructions in the lines marked with ACTION REQUIRED before running the code. Use it as a reference when working with other examples in this document.

Send a text message to a channel asynchronously.

C++

Actor.h

1

Actor.cpp

1

Blueprint

Receive

To receive messages on a given channel, you must connect to the channel and start listening to message events.