Java Non-blocking IO - Part 1

Non blocking Input Output package aims to increase performance and improve responses. In regular blocking IO you read from a socket's stream and block on the read() until you get data. In NIO, you register to be notified of events and respond only when that event occurs. Programs can avoid blocking and take action on being notified. NIO uses channels and 'a channel represents a connection to stuff like sockets, files etc and can perform multiple io operations like read, write'. Instead of an inputstream and outputstream we have a single channel to both. A profiling of NIO servers here shows that a design with NIO may not always be better than a normal multi-threaded blocking IO design for applications. Using NIO on a client like mobile devices may not (or may) be useful but for a server it may be different. Registering for events is done via 'Selectors'. Multiplexing channels is made possible via Selectors. A Selectable (multiplexable) Channel's registration with a Selector for events is represented by Keys in the Selector for different operations. When a bunch of operations on the SelectableChannel is available, the selector gives keys representing those operations.

To write a simple NIO server which accepts connections

1) open a ServerSocketChannel & set is as non-blocking

2) get the underlying socket for the channel just created & bind it to an address.

3) open a  selector

4) register the ServerSocketChannel with the Selector for a OP_ACCEPT operation. 

To handle different events

1) check the selectors for the number of ready operations (keys set)

2) if it is -1 continue to wait for an event.

3) Once there are keys to go with, retrieve the keySet which holds the keys whose channels are ready.

4) Loop through each key and handle the corresponding IO.

4a) Filter operations types by comparing the keys' ready operation code.

5) mark key as handled. (remove it)

To Write and Read from Channel:

Channels perform two-way communication and handle blocks of Data. These blocks of data are read 'into' and written 'out from' Buffers. Buffers have internal byte arrays to hold the data and can be retrieved.

Buffers have a current position from where data will be next read or written into. Flipping a buffer sets the limit as the current position and returns the position to the beginning. So if we want to use the data so far read into a buffer b and send the same data out using the same buffer, we need to flip it. This code just sends the data back.

The full code for the project is here. The client app in the project simply keeps track of time taken to get a response from the server.