NIO appeared in Java 1.4 and introduced the concept of "Channels", which are supposed to be faster than regular I/O. Network-wise, the SelectableChannel is the most interesting as it allows to monitor different states of the Channel. It works in a similar manner as the C select() system call: we get woken-up when certain types of events occur:

• connection received (OP_ACCEPT)
• connection realized (OP_CONNECT)
• data available in read FIFO (OP_READ)
• data can be pushed to write FIFO (OP_WRITE)

It allows for separation between detecting socket I/O (something can be read/written/...) and performing the I/O (read/write/...). Especially, all I/O detection can be done in a single thread for multiple sockets (clients), while performing I/O can be handled in a thread pool or anywhere else. That allows for an application to scale easily to the number of connected clients.

The following example shows the basics:

1. Create a Selector
2. Create a SocketChannel
3. Register the SocketChannelto the Selector
4. Loop with the Selector to detect events

Selector sel = Selector.open(); // Create the Selector
SocketChannel sc = SocketChannel.open(); // Create a SocketChannel
sc.configureBlocking(false); // ... non blocking
sc.setOption(StandardSocketOptions.SO_KEEPALIVE, true); // ... set some options

// Register the Channel to the Selector for wake-up on CONNECT event and use some description as an attachement
sc.register(sel, SelectionKey.OP_CONNECT, "Connection to google.com"); // Returns a SelectionKey: the association between the SocketChannel and the Selector
System.out.println("Initiating connection");
if (sc.connect(new InetSocketAddress("www.google.com", 80)))
    System.out.println("Connected"); // Connected right-away: nothing else to do
else {
    boolean exit = false;
    while (!exit) {
        if (sel.select(100) == 0) // Did something happen on some registered Channels during the last 100ms?
            continue; // No, wait some more
        
        // Something happened...
        Set<SelectionKey> keys = sel.selectedKeys(); // List of SelectionKeys on which some registered operation was triggered
        for (SelectionKey k : keys) {
            System.out.println("Checking "+k.attachment());
            if (k.isConnectable()) { // CONNECT event
                System.out.print("Connected through select() on "+k.channel()+" -> ");
                if (sc.finishConnect()) { // Finish connection process
                    System.out.println("done!");
                    k.interestOps(k.interestOps() & ~SelectionKey.OP_CONNECT); // We are already connected: remove interest in CONNECT event
                    exit = true;
                } else
                    System.out.println("unfinished...");
            }
            // TODO: else if (k.isReadable()) { ...
        }
        keys.clear(); // Have to clear the selected keys set once processed!
    }
}
System.out.print("Disconnecting ... ");
sc.shutdownOutput(); // Initiate graceful disconnection
// TODO: emtpy receive buffer
sc.close();
System.out.println("done");

Would give the following output:

Initiating connection
Checking Connection to google.com
Connected through 'select()' on java.nio.channels.SocketChannel[connection-pending remote=www.google.com/216.58.208.228:80] -> done!
Disconnecting ... done