[ Team LiB ] Previous Section Next Section

6.9 A Multiplexed Server

Example 6-13 is a simple server named PrintServiceWebInterface that responds to HTTP GET requests by sending an HTML document describing available printers. The server obtains information about printers using the javax.print package, which we'll see again in Chapter 13.

More important than the printer-information details is the structure of this example: it is a simple single-threaded server, multiplexed using a Selector object so that it can handle requests from multiple clients concurrently. The code is well-commented and should be easy to understand. The Selector monitors the ServerSocketChannel used to accept client connections and also monitors any SocketChannel objects that represent currently active clients. When a new connection is accepted, the new SocketChannel is registered with the Selector. When that channel becomes readable, the server reads the client's request (in this case it ignores the details of the request), sends a response, and then (in this case, since HTTP is a stateless protocol) closes SocketChannel and cancels its registration with the Selector so that it will no longer be monitored. This basic architecture is adaptable to a variety of server implementations.

One interesting feature of this class is that it uses the write( ) method of the GatheringByteChannel interface. This method takes an array of ByteBuffer objects and writes their contents sequentially, which allows us to separate the fixed content of the HTTP headers from the variable content of the HTML document. The ScatteringByteChannel interface has a multibuffer read( ) method that can be useful when reading data that is logically divided into segments of known length.

Example 6-13. PrintServiceWebInterface.java
package je3.nio;
import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;
import java.nio.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;
import java.nio.charset.*;
import java.util.*;           // For Set and Iterator
import javax.print.*;
import javax.print.attribute.*;

/**
 * PrintServiceWebInterface: 
 * A simple HTTP server that displays information about all accessible
 * printers on the network.
 */
public class PrintServiceWebInterface {
    public static void main(String[  ] args) throws IOException {
        // Get the character encoders and decoders we'll need
        Charset charset = Charset.forName("ISO-8859-1");
        CharsetEncoder encoder = charset.newEncoder( );

        // The HTTP headers we send back to the client are fixed
        String headers =
            "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n" +
            "Content-type: text/html\r\n" +
            "Connection: close\r\n" + 
            "\r\n";

        // We'll use two buffers in our response.  One holds the fixed
        // headers, and the other holds the variable body of the response.
        ByteBuffer[  ] buffers = new ByteBuffer[2];
        buffers[0] = encoder.encode(CharBuffer.wrap(headers));
        ByteBuffer body = ByteBuffer.allocateDirect(16*1024);
        buffers[1] = body;

        // Find all available PrintService objects to describe
        PrintService[  ] services =
            PrintServiceLookup.lookupPrintServices(null,null);

        // All of the channels we use in this code will be in non-blocking 
        // mode. So we create a Selector object that will block while 
        // monitoring all of the channels and will stop blocking only when
        // one or more of the channels is ready for I/O of some sort.
        Selector selector = Selector.open( );

        // Create a new ServerSocketChannel, and bind it to port 8000.  
        // Note that we have to do this using the underlying ServerSocket.
        ServerSocketChannel server = ServerSocketChannel.open( );
        server.socket( ).bind(new java.net.InetSocketAddress(8000));

        // Put the ServerSocketChannel into non-blocking mode
        server.configureBlocking(false);

        // Now register the channel with the Selector.  The SelectionKey
        // represents the registration of this channel with this Selector.
        SelectionKey serverkey = server.register(selector,
                                                 SelectionKey.OP_ACCEPT);

        for(;;) {  // The main server loop.  The server runs forever.
            // This call blocks until there is activity on one of the 
            // registered channels. This is the key method in non-blocking I/O.
            selector.select( );

            // Get a java.util.Set containing the SelectionKey objects for
            // all channels that are ready for I/O.
            Set keys = selector.selectedKeys( );

            // Use a java.util.Iterator to loop through the selected keys
            for(Iterator i = keys.iterator( ); i.hasNext( ); ) {
                // Get the next SelectionKey in the set, and then remove it
                // from the set.  It must be removed explicitly, or it will
                // be returned again by the next call to select( ).
                SelectionKey key = (SelectionKey) i.next( );
                i.remove( );

                // Check whether this key is the SelectionKey we got when
                // we registered the ServerSocketChannel.
                if (key == serverkey) {
                    // Activity on the ServerSocketChannel means a client
                    // is trying to connect to the server.
                    if (key.isAcceptable( )) {
                        // Accept the client connection, and obtain a 
                        // SocketChannel to communicate with the client.
                        SocketChannel client = server.accept( );

                        // Make sure we actually got a connection
                        if (client == null) continue;

                        // Put the client channel in non-blocking mode.
                        client.configureBlocking(false);

                        // Now register the client channel with the Selector, 
                        // specifying that we'd like to know when there is
                        // data ready to read on the channel.
                        SelectionKey clientkey =
                            client.register(selector, SelectionKey.OP_READ);
                    }
                }
                else {
                    // If the key we got from the Set of keys is not the
                    // ServerSocketChannel key, then it must be a key 
                    // representing one of the client connections.  
                    // Get the channel from the key.
                    SocketChannel client = (SocketChannel) key.channel( );

                    // If we got here, it should mean that there is data to
                    // be read from the channel, but we double-check here.
                    if (!key.isReadable( )) continue;
                        
                    // Now read bytes from the client.  We assume that
                    // we get all the client's bytes in one read operation
                    client.read(body);

                    // The data we read should be some kind of HTTP GET 
                    // request. We don't bother checking it however since
                    // there is only one page of data we know how to return.
                    body.clear( );

                    // Build an HTML document as our reponse.
                    // The body of the document contains PrintService details
                    StringBuffer response = new StringBuffer( );
                    response.append(
                          "<html><head><title>Printer Status</title></head>" +
                          "<body><h1>Printer Status</h1>");
                    for(int s = 0; s < services.length; s++) {
                        PrintService service = services[s];
                        response.append("<h2>")
                            .append(service.getName( )).append("</h2><table>");
                        Attribute[  ] attrs = service.getAttributes( ).toArray( );
                        for(int a = 0; a < attrs.length; a++) {
                            Attribute attr = attrs[a];
                            response.append("<tr><td>").append(attr.getName( )).
                                append("</td><td>").append(attr).
                                append("</tr>");
                        }
                        response.append("</table>");
                    }
                    response.append("</body></html>\r\n");

                    // Encode the response into the body ByteBuffer
                    encoder.reset( );
                    encoder.encode(CharBuffer.wrap(response), body, true);
                    encoder.flush(body);

                    body.flip( );   // Prepare the body buffer to be drained
                    // While there are bytes left to write
                    while(body.hasRemaining( )) {
                        // Write both header and body buffers
                        client.write(buffers); 
                    }
                    buffers[0].flip( );  // Prepare header buffer for next write
                    body.clear( );       // Prepare body buffer for next read

                    // Once we've sent our response, we have no more interest
                    // in the client channel or its SelectionKey
                    client.close( );  // Close the channel.
                    key.cancel( );    // Tell Selector to stop monitoring it.
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
    [ Team LiB ] Previous Section Next Section