Who should be responsible for closing a stream

Question

I\'m writing an application that creates a \"Catalog\" of files, which can be attributed with other meta data files such as attachments and thumbnails.

I\'m trying to ab

Answer 1

My Rules:

Should the consumer of a stream close it

1. If I return a stream from a method, the consumer is responsible. I'm giving it to you, It's your responsilibity.

2. If I accept a stream as a parameter in a method, I don't close it. When exiting the method, I don't know if the calling method still needs it. It's your stream, I'm just borrowing it, and I don't want to mess you up.

3. If I create a stream and pass it to another method, my method closes it (or tries to) when I am done with it. I don't know what you are going to do with it, but it's my stream, so I am responsible for it.