Java HTTP client which uses SocketChannel so that I may interrupt threads reading a request

Question

It looks like SocketChannel supports being interrupted, yet regular sockets do not.

Do any java HTTP clients exists which are able to use the SocketChannel instead of Socket .

I would like to support threads being interrupted when reading from the server, currently when using URL#openConnection() if the thread is stuck waiting for a response from the server it can not be unstuck by interrupting it.

Answer 1

I've never used it myself, but it looks like what would be closest to your need is a non-blocking HTTP client. The only implementation I know of is Netty based Spring reactive client: reactor-netty .

It should allow you to do something like this:

final Mono<HttpClientResponse> futureResponse = HttpClient.create()
           .baseUrl("http://example.com")
           .get()
           .response();

final Disposable httpHandle = response.subscribe(
    response -> onSuccess(response),
    response -> onError(response)
);

// When you want to force disconnection
httpHandle.dispose();

Note : be cautious however, because I'm really not aware of the limitations of this system. However, Spring team provides advanced documentation to help.