Applets having the capability of being selected on multiple logical channels at the same time, or accepting other applets belonging to the same package being selected simultaneously, are referred to as multiselectable applets.

Note - All applets within a package shall be multiselectable or none shall be.

An applet's context is active when either an instance of the applet is already active, or when another applet instance from the same package is active. For more information about contexts see Section 6.1.2, Contexts and Context Switching. An attempt to select an applet instance when the applet's context is active, is referred to as a multiselection attempt. If successful, multiselection occurs, and the applet instance becomes multiselected.

Multiselectable applets shall implement the javacard.framework.MultiSelectable interface. In case of multiselection, the applet instance is informed by invoking its methods MultiSelectable.select and MultiSelectable.deselect during selection and deselection respectively.

When an applet instance not currently active is the first one selected in its package, its Applet.select method is called. Subsequent multiselections to this applet instance or selection of other applet instances in the same package shall result in a call to MultiSelectable.select method. This method is defined in the MultiSelectable interface. Its only purpose is to inform the applet instance that it will be multiselected. The applet instance may accept or reject a multiselection attempt.

If a multiselection attempt is made on an applet which does not implement the MultiSelectable interface, the selection shall be rejected by the Java Card RE.

When a multiselected applet instance is deselected from one of the logical channels, the method MultiSelectable.deselect is called. Only when the multiselected applet instance is the last active applet instance in the applet's context, is its regular method Applet.deselect called.

The following list describes the two cases of multiselection:

1. When two distinct applet instances from within the same package are multiselected, each applet instance shares the same CLEAR_ON_DESELECT memory transient segment. The applet instances share objects within the context firewall as well as their transient data. The Java Card RE shall not reset this CLEAR_ON_DESELECT transient objects until all applet instances within the package are deselected, see FIGURE 4-2.

FIGURE 4-2 Different Applet Instances in Same Package

2. When the same applet instance is multiselected on two different logical channels simultaneously, it shares the CLEAR_ON_DESELECT memory segment space across logical channels. The Java Card RE shall not reset the CLEAR_ON_DESELECT transient objects until all applet instances within the package are deselected, see FIGURE 4-3.

FIGURE 4-3 Same Applet Instance Selected on Multiple Logical Channels

In both cases of multiselection, the applets must implement the MultiSelectable interface. If the applets do not support this feature, the selection must be rejected by the Java Card RE.