Flusher.java

/*
 * Flusher.java February 2007
 *
 * Copyright (C) 2007, Niall Gallagher <niallg@users.sf.net>
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or 
 * implied. See the License for the specific language governing 
 * permissions and limitations under the License.
 */

package org.simpleframework.transport;

import java.io.IOException;

/**
 * The <code>Flusher</code> object is used to flush data to the underlying
 * socket. This allows asynchronous writes to the socket to be managed in such a
 * way that there is order to the way data is delivered over the socket. This
 * uses a selector to dispatch flush invocations to the underlying socket when
 * the socket is read ready. This allows the writing thread to continue without
 * having to wait for all the data to be written to the socket.
 * 
 * @author Niall Gallagher
 * 
 * @see org.simpleframework.transport.Controller
 */
interface Flusher {

    /**
     * Here in this method we schedule a flush when the underlying writer is
     * write ready. This allows the writer thread to return without having to
     * fully flush the content to the underlying transport. This will block if
     * references are queued.
     */
    void flush() throws IOException;

    /**
     * This is used to close the flusher ensuring that all of the data within
     * the writer will be flushed regardless of the amount of data within the
     * writer that needs to be written. If the writer does not block then this
     * waits to be finished.
     */
    void close() throws IOException;
}