Socket and ObjectStream communication

[JavaLearner]

I am trying to do something very simple. I have a server and multiple clients. Each of those clients connect to the server on a particular port. Every client talks to the server based on the current state of the client. For eg, the client first connects to the server and provides its identity. Once the server authenticates this client, it sends out a accept response. The server now maintains the client state as authenticated. As the client requests for new messages the server responds.

Simple client server communication. Now this is what I am trying to do.
Socket socket = serverSocket.accept() ; this is a blocking call and until the client responds, the server waits.
inputStream = socket.getobjectInputStream() ; so I save the objectinputstream for that client.

Now I expect that subsequent calls to
inputStream.readObject() will result in blocking calls. And that I wont need to do a serverSocket.accept() anymore for that client. This way every request the client sends, the server does not need to identify the client. Correct ?

Thats what streams are for right ? A stream is like a connection made between the server and client. I just need to write to the outputstream on the client side and read from the inputstream on the server side.

Please correct my assumption. The java docs dont mention if the readObject on inputstream is blocking or not. I wonder why not...

[trey]

The non-blocking library is java.nio. Remember that since the accept method is blocking, the thread will not perform beyond that call until a Socket is accepted, which in some cases forces multi-threading (particularly bad in cases where a new thread is created for each Socket that is accepted). To answer your question directly, readObject is a blocking call, which once again almost forces multi-threading. I would recommend reading into NIO a bit, this may save you some hassle as far as the overall design.