Best way to send continuous data in Java using Netty

[Amit Phatarphekar]

I'm planning to use Netty to design a TCP Server.  When the client connects,
I have to immediately start pumping
XML data to the client continuously...for hours/days.  Its that simple.

So, I override "channelConnected" method and send data from that method,
right?...thats great.


I will be using the following ChannelFactory
        ChannelFactory factory =
            new NioServerSocketChannelFactory(
                    Executors.newCachedThreadPool(),
                    Executors.newCachedThreadPool());

NioServerSocketChannelFactory documentation says -> "A worker thread
performs non-blocking read and write for one or more Channels in a
non-blocking mode."  Good.

According to effective Java "Item 51: Don't depend on the thread scheduler",
I want the worker thread to do a "unit of work" and then finish/return.

So in my case, though I have to send data continuously, I want to send some
chunk (lets say 1 MB ) and then be done (unit of work completed), so that
worker thread can return.  Then I'll send another 1 MB.


Below example is from the official guide of Netty here ->
http://docs.jboss.org/netty/3.2/guide/html_single/index.html#d0e440

I guess the question is then, in this scenario, if i had to unconditionally
keep sending time to the client, how would I do it, considering
each send as a unit of work.


One way of doing it would be to just put a while loop and do a
Thread.Sleep.  Any other way?



        package org.jboss.netty.example.time;

        public class TimeServerHandler extends SimpleChannelHandler {

            @Override
            public void channelConnected(ChannelHandlerContext ctx,
ChannelStateEvent e) {1
                Channel ch = e.getChannel();

                ChannelBuffer time = ChannelBuffers.buffer(4);
                time.writeInt(System.currentTimeMillis() / 1000);

                ChannelFuture f = ch.write(time);

                f.addListener(new ChannelFutureListener() {
                    public void operationComplete(ChannelFuture future) {
                        Channel ch = future.getChannel();
                        ch.close();
                    }
                });
            }

            @Override
            public void exceptionCaught(ChannelHandlerContext ctx,
ExceptionEvent e) {
                e.getCause().printStackTrace();
                e.getChannel().close();
            }
        }
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