Any issues with replacing new Socket() with SocketChannel.open().socket()?

Question

What can go wrong if I simply replace

socket = new Socket()

with

socket = SocketChannel.open().socket()?

Back

Answer 1

There are several.

1. A Socket acquired via a SocketChannel doesn't appear to support read timeouts.
2. The InputStream and OutputStream of a socket aren't independent: they have a mutual lock in common.

Why do you want to interrupt the connect() call? Surely all you want is a connect timeout?

Answer 2

Differences in the type of thrown exceptions could break existing code.

For instance, closing a Socket from a different thread while Socket.getInputStream().read() is blocking will result in AsynchronousCloseException after replacing, instead of SocketException that legacy code could be expecting. (AsynchronousCloseException is not a subclass of SocketException.)

However, Socket.getInputStream().read() will still throw SocketException if the close from the other thread gets in before read().