What is meant by Blocking I/O ?

[arul senthil]

Hi
Can anyone tell me what is meant by "blocking i/o" operation?
What is a "non-blocking i/o" ? Pls explain them in terms of Threads.
Thanks,
Senthil.

[Kezia Matthews]

I/O operations are considered to be blocking operations for thread execution. This means that, when a thread starts performing I/O, (which would include a series of operations in itself, like opening file, reading, writing, closing of files, etc), it prevents the thread from performing any other operation, till the I/O is over. Hence I/O is called a blocking operation as far as threads are concerned.
There is nothing like non-blocking I/O.

[Peter den Haan]

Originally posted by Kezia Matthews:
There is nothing like non-blocking I/O.

Actually, in J2SDK v1.4, currently in beta, there is (java.nio.*).
- Peter

[Kezia Matthews]

Thanks Peter, for letting me know about the existence of "non-blocking I/O" in the new version, J2SDK v1.4.
Kezia.

[arul senthil]

Thanks.
There is some more info about NBIO here : http://www.jguru.com/forums/view.jsp?EID=468022
-Senthil.

[Kezia Matthews]

Thanks Arul.