What is the difference between queues and exchanges in RabbitMQ and how do they interact?

In RabbitMQ, queues are data structures that store messages until consumers retrieve them. A queue guarantees delivery order and stores messages if the consumer is temporarily unavailable.

Exchanges are components that receive messages from producers and route them to one or more queues according to specific rules (binding). An exchange does not store messages but only routes them.

Interaction:

1. The producer sends a message to the exchange.
2. The exchange, based on specified rules (exchange type and bindings), decides which queue to send the message to.
3. The message is placed in the queue and waits for the consumer.

Types of exchanges:

• direct — routing by exact key match.
• fanout — broadcasting to all bound queues.
• topic — routing based on key pattern matching.
• headers — routing based on message headers.

Example: a producer sends a message to a direct exchange with the key "task", and the exchange routes the message to the queue bound with the key "task".