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Google Tech Talks Presents Overview of NIO.2 for Java 7

by R.J. Lorimer on Jun 08, 2008 |

The Google Tech Talks channel has released a recent presentation by Alan Bateman of Sun Microsystems and Carl Quinn of Google discussing the key features being defined by JSR 203; commonly known as NIO.2, or more NIO. Alan Bateman is the specification-lead for JSR 203.

NIO.2 is a series of enhancements to the I/O facilities in Java planned for a Java 7 release. All of the major enhancements for the JSR are discussed in the video, including:

File System API - The problems and short-comings of java.io.File are discussed, and the new API is presented with examples of complex paths, utilities for copying and iterating, symbolic link support, notification mechanisms, compatibility with existing I/O APIs, and file attribute management.
Completion of the Socket Channel API - Some issues left over with the implementation of JSR 51 (NIO in Java 1.4) are reviewed, including socket management and lack of multicast support in the NIO channels. Examples are provided for how these issues are being resolved.
Asynchronous I/O - A comparison of new asynchronous I/O API with polling/non-blocking I/O is provided, as is a description of thread and completion event management in the new API, and a number of examples.

As discussed last April on InfoQ, the early draft review has been completed for JSR 203, and as such the draft specification for NIO.2 is available for download. Java 7 snapshots do not yet include NIO.2, however the latest source code, javadocs, and information about mailing-lists is all available on the OpenJDK homepage for JSR 203. Java 7 is expected for release in the first-half of 2009.