Java resource closing

Question

I\'m writing an app that connect to a website and read one line from it. I do it like this:

try{
        URLConnection connection = new URL(\"www.example.com         


        

Answer 1

The general idiom for resource acquisition and release in Java is:

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

Note:

• try should immediately follow the acquire. This means you can't wrap it in the decorator and maintain safety (and removing spaces or putting things on one line doesn't help:).
• One release per finally, otherwise it wont be exception safe.
• Avoid null, use final. Otherwise you'll have messy code and potential for NPEs.
• Generally there is no need to close the decorator unless it has a further resource associated with it. However, you will generally need to flush outputs, but avoid that in the exception case.
• The exception should either be passed through to the caller, or caught from a surrounding try block (Java leads you astray here).

ou can abstract this nonsense with the Execute Around idiom, so you don't have to repeat yourself (just write a lot of boilerplate).