Java I/O, NIO and NIO.2

Chapter    8

Selectors

I/O is either block-oriented (such as file I/O) or stream-oriented (such as network I/O). Streams are often slower than block devices (such as fixed disks) and read/write operations often cause the calling thread to block until input is available or output has been fully written. To compensate, modern operating systems let streams operate in nonblocking mode, which makes it possible for a thread to read or write data without blocking. The operation fully succeeds or indicates partial success. Either way, the thread is able to perform other useful work instead of waiting.

Nonblocking mode doesn’t let an application determine if it can perform an operation without actually performing the operation. For example, when a nonblocking ...