How do I close a file after catching an IOException in java?

Question

All,

I am trying to ensure that a file I have open with BufferedReader is closed when I catch an IOException, but it appears as if my BufferedReader object is out o

Answer 1

My preferred way of performing clean-up after an exception (when the clean-up can potentially also throw an exception) is to put the code in the try block inside another try/finally block, as follows:

public static ArrayList readFiletoArrayList(String fileName, ArrayList fileArrayList) {
    fileArrayList.removeAll(fileArrayList);

    try {
        //open the file for reading
        BufferedReader fileIn = null;

        try {
            fileIn = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(fileName));
            // add line by line to array list, until end of file is reached
            // when buffered reader returns null (todo). 
            while(true){
                fileArrayList.add(fileIn.readLine());
            }
        } finally {
            if (fileIn != null) {
                fileIn.close();
            }
        }
    }catch(IOException e){
        fileArrayList.removeAll(fileArrayList);
        return fileArrayList; //returned empty. Dealt with in calling code. 
    }
}