Identifying and managing clients in nonblocking NIO socket programming

Question

Here's my beef. When I write a Server using a thread for every new connection that comes in, I can remember everything for each client in its respective thread. I can have a table entry in a MYSQL database for each client which each thread can look up by a remembered id. I can direct packets from a different application to a specific client by passing a message to the thread associated with the client. But, in this implementation, the client-server setup will need to have a master-slave relationship where one is always reading, and can talk on the network only in response.
I like the NIO selector way of doing things, but I do not get a memory method to deal with specific clients. How do I, for example,
direct packets to a specific client.?
recognize incoming packet info and make sense of its context in relation to past messages to and from the same client?
maintain one-to-one correspondence between a MYSQL database table entry and a specific client?
Could somebody explain this to me how I can maintain a client environment, and a client state machine with memory?
Thanks
Anil

Answer 1

cloud9ine wrote:
Here's my beef. When I write a Server using a thread for every new connection that comes in, I can remember everything for each client in its respective thread. I can have a table entry in a MYSQL database for each client which each thread can look up by a remembered id. I can direct packets from a different application to a specific client by passing a message to the thread associated with the client. But, in this implementation, the client-server setup will need to have a master-slave relationship where one is always reading, and can talk on the network only in response.
I like the NIO selector way of doing things, but I do not get a memory method to deal with specific clients. How do I, for example,
direct packets to a specific client.?
recognize incoming packet info and make sense of its context in relation to past messages to and from the same client?
maintain one-to-one correspondence between a MYSQL database table entry and a specific client?
Could somebody explain this to me how I can maintain a client environment, and a client state machine with memory?
Thanks
AnilYou will use select() and SelectionKey when you deal with NIO. The SelectionKey has an attach method that you can use to associate the client with something, e.g. a session. Your Session class can contain all that you now have in your thread.
Kaj