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

It's better not to deal with null - the general idiom for resource acquisition and release in Java is :

final Resource resource = acquire();
try { use(resource); }
finally { resource.release(); }

so:

public static List readFiletoArrayList(String fileName,
        List fileArrayList, String charsetName) {
    fileArrayList.clear(); // why fileArrayList.removeAll(fileArrayList) ?
    try {
        InputStream file = new FileInputStream(fileName);
        try {
            InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(file, charsetName);
            BufferedReader buffer = new BufferedReader(reader);
            for (String line = buffer.readLine(); line != null; line = buffer
                    .readLine()) {
                fileArrayList.add(line);
            }
        } finally {
            try {
                file.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {
                e.printStackTrace(); // you do not want this to hide an
                // exception thrown earlier so swallow it
            }
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        fileArrayList.clear(); // returned empty. Dealt with in client
    }
    return fileArrayList;
}

See my points here

If you are using a reader you must specify the encoding as I am doing here. If you want to read bytes forget about the reader. Also if you use readLine() you must forget about the end of line characters - if this is a concern consider omitting the BufferedReader entirely.