Non-blocking I/O using Servlet 3.1: Scalable applications using Java EE 7 (TOTD #188)
- by arungupta
Servlet 3.0 allowed asynchronous request processing but only
traditional I/O was permitted. This can restrict scalability of your
applications. In a typical application, ServletInputStream is read
in a while loop.
public class TestServlet extends HttpServlet { protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws IOException, ServletException { ServletInputStream input = request.getInputStream(); byte[] b = new byte[1024]; int len = -1; while ((len = input.read(b)) != -1) { . . . } }}
If the incoming data is blocking or streamed slower than the server
can read then the server thread is waiting for that data. The same
can happen if the data is written to ServletOutputStream.
This is resolved in Servet 3.1 (JSR 340, to be
released as part Java EE 7) by adding event
listeners - ReadListener and WriteListener
interfaces. These are then registered using ServletInputStream.setReadListener
and ServletOutputStream.setWriteListener. The
listeners have callback methods that are invoked when the content is
available to be read or can be written without blocking.
The updated doGet in our case will look like:
AsyncContext context = request.startAsync();ServletInputStream input = request.getInputStream();input.setReadListener(new MyReadListener(input, context));
Invoking setXXXListener methods indicate that
non-blocking I/O is used instead of the traditional I/O. At most one
ReadListener can be registered on ServletIntputStream
and similarly at most one WriteListener can be
registered on ServletOutputStream. ServletInputStream.isReady
and ServletInputStream.isFinished are new methods to
check the status of non-blocking I/O read. ServletOutputStream.canWrite
is a new method to check if data can be written without blocking.
MyReadListener implementation looks like:
@Overridepublic void onDataAvailable() { try { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); int len = -1; byte b[] = new byte[1024]; while (input.isReady() && (len = input.read(b)) != -1) { String data = new String(b, 0, len); System.out.println("--> " + data); } } catch (IOException ex) { Logger.getLogger(MyReadListener.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); }}@Overridepublic void onAllDataRead() { System.out.println("onAllDataRead"); context.complete();}@Overridepublic void onError(Throwable t) { t.printStackTrace(); context.complete();}
This implementation has three callbacks:
onDataAvailable callback method is called
whenever data can be read without blocking
onAllDataRead callback method is invoked data for
the current request is completely read.
onError callback is invoked if there is an error
processing the request.
Notice, context.complete() is called in onAllDataRead
and onError to signal the completion of data read.
For now, the first chunk of available data need to be read in the doGet
or service method of the Servlet. Rest of the data can
be read in a non-blocking way using ReadListener after
that. This is going to get cleaned up where all data read can happen
in ReadListener only.
The sample explained above can be downloaded from
here and works with GlassFish
4.0 build 64 and onwards.
The slides and a complete re-run of What's
new in Servlet 3.1: An Overview session at JavaOne is
available here.
Here are some more references for you:
Java
EE 7 Specification Status
Servlet
Specification Project
JSR
Expert Group Discussion Archive
Servlet
3.1 Javadocs
