java try finally block to close stream

Question

I want to close my stream in the finally block, but it throws an IOException so it seems like I have to nest another try block in my finally<

Answer 1

It seems a bit clunky.

It is. At least java7's try with resources fixes that.

Pre java7 you can make a closeStream function that swallows it:

public void closeStream(Closeable s){
    try{
        if(s!=null)s.close();
    }catch(IOException e){
        //Log or rethrow as unchecked (like RuntimException) ;)
    }
}

Or put the try...finally inside the try catch:

try{
    BufferedReader r = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(address.openStream()));
    try{

        String inLine;
        while ((inLine = r.readLine()) != null) {
            System.out.println(inLine);
        }
    }finally{
        r.close();
    }
}catch(IOException e){
    e.printStackTrace();
}

It's more verbose and an exception in the finally will hide one in the try but it's semantically closer to the try-with-resources introduced in Java 7.