To achieve non-blocking, asynchronous I/O, and high throughput in a microservice, Java's AsynchronousSocketChannel with NIO (Option 1) is the ideal choice. It allows for efficient handling of multiple connections without the need for a thread per connection, leading to scalability. Options 2 and 3, which use multi-threading, may lead to higher resource consumption and less scalability. Option 4, utilizing UDP with DatagramSocket, may not guarantee reliable, ordered, and synchronous communication, which is essential for a microservice handling requests.

To establish a secure connection for downloading files from an FTP server in Java, you can use the org.apache.commons.net.ftp.FTPClient class. To ensure secure transmission, enable FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS) in your FTP client configuration. This approach ensures that file transfers between your application and the FTP server are encrypted and secure.

The read() method of the FileReader class returns -1 when the end of the file is reached. This indicates that there are no more characters to read from the file.

In Java, to retrieve the result of a computation from a Future object, you use the get() method. The get() method blocks until the computation is complete and then returns the result. This is a fundamental method when working with concurrent programming and asynchronous tasks.

In Java, when considering threading and concurrent access, the CopyOnWriteArrayList can introduce higher overhead in managing read and write access. This is because it creates a new copy of the underlying array every time a modification operation is performed (e.g., add or remove). While this ensures thread safety during iterations, it can be inefficient for scenarios with frequent write operations. So, option (c) is correct, with the explanation that CopyOnWriteArrayList is used for thread-safe iteration but may introduce overhead in write operations.

When there are multiple case labels that match the switch expression in Java, only the first-matching case will be executed. Subsequent cases with matching labels will be ignored, ensuring that only the first matching case block is executed.

The class ObjectOutputStream in Java is used for writing primitive Java data types to an output stream in a portable way. It provides methods for writing various data types to the stream.

The DatabaseMetaData interface in JDBC provides methods for retrieving metadata about the database, including information about its structure (tables, schemas), the user associated with the connection, and more. It's essential for database introspection and querying the database schema. The other options are not used for this purpose.

The class RandomAccessFile in Java is used to perform read and write operations on a file. Unlike other file I/O classes, it allows you to modify bytes at specific positions in a file. You can move the file pointer to a desired location using this class and then read or write data from or to that position.

In this code snippet, Java performs string concatenation when you use the '+' operator with a string and another data type. So, "2" + 3 results in "23". The integer 3 is automatically converted to a string and then concatenated with "2".

In Java, when a subclass overrides a method from its superclass, it must adhere to the method signature, including the exceptions it can throw. If the superclass method declares exceptions, the overriding method can declare the same exceptions or subtypes of those exceptions. This rule ensures that the subclass does not throw unexpected exceptions.

Yes, constructors can be private in Java. A private constructor is often used in design patterns like Singleton to ensure that only one instance of a class can be created. It restricts external instantiation of the class.