I/O:need close?

[nan sh]

The following code creating a stream first then, start to read from
the stream. If it is going wrong for reading. it is going to close
the stream and return false(as line 18). My question is in line 8, if
FileNotFoundException is raised, should I close the stream(b.close()),before return?
// create a stream
try{
FileReader f = new FileReader"text.txt");
BufferedReader b = new BufferedReader(f);
}
catch(FileNotFoundException e){
System.out.println("FileNotFoundException "+e);
//line 8b.close();
return false;
}

//read first line
try{
str = b.readLIne();
}
catch(IOExcetion e){
System.out.println("IOException "+e);
b.close();//line18
return false;
}

[Jane Griscti]

Hi Nan,
You'll get an error if you try to close b in the catch blocks as it won't be visible It might be better to put the close() in a finally

// create a stream 
   BufferedReader b;    // now it's visible in all the blocks

   try{
        FileReader f = new FileReader"text.txt");
        b = new BufferedReader(f);
   }
   catch(FileNotFoundException e){
           System.out.println("FileNotFoundException "+e);
           return false;
   }
//read first line
  try{
       str = b.readLIne();
  }
  catch(IOExcetion e){
     System.out.println("IOException "+e);
     return false;
  }finally {
       if( b != null )   // test if it's been created
           b.close()
   }

Hope that helps.
------------------
Jane Griscti
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java� 2 Platform
[This message has been edited by Jane Griscti (edited February 18, 2001).]

[nan sh]

Thanks Jane.