Here are the commands I use to get the contents of the queue:
RabbitMQ version 3.1.5 on Fedora linux using https://www.rabbitmq.com/management-cli.html
Here are my exchanges:
eric@dev ~ $ sudo python rabbitmqadmin list exchanges
+-------+--------------------+---------+-------------+---------+----------+
| vhost | name | type | auto_delete | durable | internal |
+-------+--------------------+---------+-------------+---------+----------+
| / | | direct | False | True | False |
| / | kowalski | topic | False | True | False |
+-------+--------------------+---------+-------------+---------+----------+
Here is my queue:
eric@dev ~ $ sudo python rabbitmqadmin list queues
+-------+----------+-------------+-----------+---------+------------------------+---------------------+--------+----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------------+--------+---------+
| vhost | name | auto_delete | consumers | durable | exclusive_consumer_tag | idle_since | memory | messages | messages_ready | messages_unacknowledged | node | policy | status |
+-------+----------+-------------+-----------+---------+------------------------+---------------------+--------+----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------------+--------+---------+
| / | myqueue | False | 0 | True | | 2014-09-10 13:32:18 | 13760 | 0 | 0 | 0 |rabbit@ip-11-1-52-125| | running |
+-------+----------+-------------+-----------+---------+------------------------+---------------------+--------+----------+----------------+-------------------------+---------------------+--------+---------+
Cram some items into myqueue:
curl -i -u guest:guest http://localhost:15672/api/exchanges/%2f/kowalski/publish -d '{"properties":{},"routing_key":"abcxyz","payload":"foobar","payload_encoding":"string"}'
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: MochiWeb/1.1 WebMachine/1.10.0 (never breaks eye contact)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:46:59 GMT
content-type: application/json
Content-Length: 15
Cache-Control: no-cache
{"routed":true}
RabbitMQ see messages in queue:
eric@dev ~ $ sudo python rabbitmqadmin get queue=myqueue requeue=true count=10
+-------------+----------+---------------+---------------------------------------+---------------+------------------+------------+-------------+
| routing_key | exchange | message_count | payload | payload_bytes | payload_encoding | properties | redelivered |
+-------------+----------+---------------+---------------------------------------+---------------+------------------+------------+-------------+
| abcxyz | kowalski | 10 | foobar | 6 | string | | True |
| abcxyz | kowalski | 9 | {'testdata':'test'} | 19 | string | | True |
| abcxyz | kowalski | 8 | {'mykey':'myvalue'} | 19 | string | | True |
| abcxyz | kowalski | 7 | {'mykey':'myvalue'} | 19 | string | | True |
+-------------+----------+---------------+---------------------------------------+---------------+------------------+------------+-------------+