Re: different try-finally approach

From:
Lew <noone@lewscanon.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:42:08 -0400
Message-ID:
<h5ari1$3fl$1@news.albasani.net>
Pitch wrote:

In article <h5ack5$26l$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
mccleary.b@folderol.cs.uhtx.edu says...>

Pitch wrote:

In article <h59cv1$tq6$1@news.albasani.net>, noone@lewscanon.com says

  public void doSomething()
      // throws [MyResource|App]Exception
  {
   final MyResource res;

[snip]

   try
   {
     // do something with res
   }
   finally
   {
     res.close()
   }
  }

This implies res is not going to get null in the last try-block. I think
this is a real possibility if more programmers work on the code so you'd
still need if != null

No, 'res' is guaranteed not to be null.

What about this:

    assert res != null;

    try
    {
      // do something with res
      res = null;
    }
    finally
    {
      res.close()
    }

Error: cannot assign a value to final variable res
1 error


The helpful compiler can now enforce the rules; no need to waste expensive
run-time tests or exceptions. With a dash of immutability, fine-grained
exception handling to distinguish acquisition failure from in-stream failure,
carefully positioned 'assert' invariants, and a properly-scoped 'finally' to
enforce resource release, one provably locks out the Bad Things from run-time
possibility.

It's worth a little extra care in the lower levels of resource client code to
gain such robustness.

--
Lew

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