public interface ScatteringByteChannel
extends ReadableByteChannel

A channel that can read bytes into a sequence of buffers.

A scattering read operation reads, in a single invocation, a sequence of bytes into one or more of a given sequence of buffers. Scattering reads are often useful when implementing network protocols or file formats that, for example, group data into segments consisting of one or more fixed-length headers followed by a variable-length body. Similar gathering write operations are defined in the GatheringByteChannel interface.

long read(ByteBuffer[] dsts,
          int offset,
          int length)
   throws IOException

Reads a sequence of bytes from this channel into a subsequence of the given buffers.

An invocation of this method attempts to read up to r bytes from this channel, where r is the total number of bytes remaining the specified subsequence of the given buffer array, that is,

dsts[offset].remaining()
    + dsts[offset+1].remaining()
    + ... + dsts[offset+length-1].remaining()

at the moment that this method is invoked.

Suppose that a byte sequence of length n is read, where 0 <= n <= r. Up to the first dsts[offset].remaining() bytes of this sequence are transferred into buffer dsts[offset], up to the next dsts[offset+1].remaining() bytes are transferred into buffer dsts[offset+1], and so forth, until the entire byte sequence is transferred into the given buffers. As many bytes as possible are transferred into each buffer, hence the final position of each updated buffer, except the last updated buffer, is guaranteed to be equal to that buffer's limit.

This method may be invoked at any time. If another thread has already initiated a read operation upon this channel, however, then an invocation of this method will block until the first operation is complete.

long read(ByteBuffer[] dsts)
   throws IOException

Reads a sequence of bytes from this channel into the given buffers.

An invocation of this method of the form c.read(dsts) behaves in exactly the same manner as the invocation

c.read(dsts, 0, dsts.length);