Asynchronous HTTP Client for Java

As a relative newbie in the Java world, I am finding many things frustratingly obtuse to accomplish that are relatively trivial in many other frameworks. A primary example is a simple solution for asynchronous http requests. Seeing as one doesn't seem to already exist, what is the best approach? Creating my own threads using a blocking type lib like httpclient or the built-in java http stuff, or should I use the newer non-blocking io java stuff - it seems particularly complex for something which should be simple.

What I am looking for is something easy to use from a developer point of view - something similar to URLLoader in AS3 - where you simply create a URLRequest - attach a bunch of event handlers to handle the completion, errors, progress, etc, and call a method to fire it off.

If you are not familiar with URLLoader in AS3, its so super easy and looks something like this:

private void getURL(String url)

{

        URLLoader loader = new URLLoader();

        loader.addEventListener(Event.Complete, completeHandler);

        loader.addEventListener(HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, httpStatusHandler);

        loader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, ioErrorHandler);



        URLRequest request = new URLRequest(url);



    // fire it off - this is asynchronous so we handle

    // completion with event handlers

        loader.load(request);

}



private void completeHandler(Event event)

{

        URLLoader loader = (URLLoader)event.target;

        Object results = loader.data;



        // process results

}



private void httpStatusHandler(Event event)

{

        // check status code

}



private void ioErrorHandler(Event event)

{

        // handle errors

}

Source: Tips4all, CCNA FINAL EXAM