Re: (File)OutputStreams and their usage

From:

Philipp <sicsicsic@freesurf.ch>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Fri, 16 May 2008 14:18:25 +0200

Message-ID:

<1210940279_5003@sicinfo3.epfl.ch>

Leonard Milcin wrote:

Philipp wrote:

Dear all,

Is this (see code) the correct way of handling a FileOutputStream?
Specific question are in the code. Thanks for your answers. Philipp

public void load(File file){
  OutputStream os;
  try {
    os = new FileOutputStream(file);
  } catch (Exception e) {
    logger.log("Could not open file output stream", e);
    // can os be non-null here?
    // should I put a close() here?
    return;
  }

  try {
    load(os); // call of another load method with OutputStream
  } catch (Exception e) {
    logger.log("Exception while loading from file.", e);
    return; // is this return of any interest?
  } finally {
    if(os != null){
      try {
        os.close();
      } catch (Exception e) {
        // exception while closing, what can we do?
      }
    }
  }
}

Well, you're converting from exceptions to error codes.
load() can silently fail and it's up to the caller to check if
it has loaded anything. I would propagate exceptions or convert them to
another type of exception.

Yes, you are correct, I should definitely rethrow rather than log at
that point.
But this was not really my question. I'm rather asking at what points I
I have to call close() on the stream to gurantee correct release of
resources in all cases and whether having a return in the first or
second catch is problematic in this respect.
Phil