[TRY_WITH_RESOURCE_TECHNOTE] The try-with-resources Statement

The try-with-resources statement is a try statement that declares one or more resources.

A resource is as an object that must be closed after the program is finished with it. The try-with-resources statement ensures that each resource is closed at the end of the statement. Any object that implements java.lang.AutoCloseable, which includes all objects which implement java.io.Closeable, can be used as a resource:

package java.lang;

public interface AutoCloseable {
    void close() throws Exception;
}
					

The Closeable interface extends the AutoCloseable interface. The close() method of the Closeable interface throws exceptions of type IOException while the close() method of the AutoCloseable interface throws exceptions of type Exception. Consequently, subclasses of the AutoCloseable interface can override this behavior of the close() method to throw specialized exceptions, such as IOException, or no exception at all.

package java.io;

import java.io.IOException;

public interface Closeable extends AutoCloseable {
    public void close() throws IOException;
}
					

The following example reads the first line from a file. It uses an instance of BufferedReader to read data from the file. BufferedReader is a resource that must be closed after the program is finished with it:

static String readFirstLineFromFile(String path) throws IOException {
    try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path))) {
        return br.readLine();
    }
}
					

In this example, the resource declared in the try-with-resources statement is a BufferedReader. The declaration statement appears within parentheses immediately after the try keyword. The class BufferedReader, in Java SE 7 and later, implements the interface java.lang.AutoCloseable. Because the BufferedReader instance is declared in a try-with-resource statement, it will be closed regardless of whether the try statement completes normally or abruptly (as a result of the method BufferedReader.readLine throwing an IOException).

Prior to Java SE 7, you can use a finally block to ensure that a resource is closed regardless of whether the whether the try statement completes normally or abruptly. The following example uses a finally block instead of a try-with-resources statement:

static String readFirstLineFromFileWithFinallyBlock(String path) throws IOException {
    BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path));
    try {
        return br.readLine();
    } finally {
        if (br != null) br.close();
    }
}
					

However, in this example, if the methods readLine and close both throw exceptions, then the method readFirstLineFromFileWithFinallyBlock throws the exception thrown from the finally block; the exception thrown from the try block is suppressed. In contrast, in the example readFirstLineFromFile, if exceptions are thrown from both the try block and the try-with-resources statement, then the method readFirstLineFromFile throws the exception thrown from the try block; the exception thrown from the try-with-resources block is suppressed. In Java SE 7 and later, you can retrieve suppressed exceptions; see the next section for more information.

You may declare one or more resources in a try-with-resources statement. The following example makes a copy of a file, using the try-with-resources statement. There are two resources defined in the try statement, separated by a semicolon, which are automatically closed when the statement completes:

public static void copyFile(String src, String dest) throws IOException  {
    try (BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(src));
         BufferedWriter out = new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter(dest))) {
        String line;
        while((line = in.readLine()) != null) {
            out.write(line);
            out.write('\n');
        }
    } // No need to close resources in a "finally"
}
					

NOTE: the close() methods of resources are called in the OPPOSITE order of their creation.

NOTE: in try-with-resource statement the catch and the finally blocks are OPTIONAL.

In JDBC 4.1 the java.lang.AutoCloseable interface is extended by the following interfaces:

The following example uses a try-with-resources statement to automatically close a java.sql.Statement object:

public static void viewTable(Connection con) throws SQLException {
    String query = "SELECT ... FROM ...";
    try (Statement stmt = con.createStatement()) {
        ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(query);
        while (rs.next()) {
            // ...
        }
    } catch (SQLException e) {
        // ...
    }
}
					

The resource java.sql.Statement used in this example is part of the JDBC 4.1 and later API.

NOTE: A try-with-resources statement CAN have catch and finally blocks just like an ordinary try statement. In a try-with-resources statement, any catch or finally block is run AFTER the resources declared have been closed.

Making an Auto-Closeable Class

As you know, a try-with-resources statement cannot manage every class. A new interface called java.lang.AutoCloseable was introduced in Java SE 7. All it does is provide a void method named close() that may throw a checked exception (java.lang.Exception). Any class willing to participate in try-with-resources statements should implement this interface. It is strongly recommended that implementing classes and sub-interfaces declare a more precise exception type than java.lang.Exception, or, even better, declare no exception type at all if invoking close() should not fail.

Such close() methods have been retro-fitted into many classes of the standard Java SE run-time environment , including the java.io, java.nio, javax.crypto, java.security, java.util.zip, java.util.jar, javax.net, and java.sql packages. The major advantage of this approach is that existing code continues working just as before, while new code can easily take advantage of the try-with-resources statement.

Consider the following example:

public class AutoCloseableResource implements AutoCloseable {

    @Override
    public void close() {
        System.out.println("in close()");
        throw new RuntimeException("Exception in close()");
    }

    public void work() throws Exception {
        System.out.println("in work()");
        throw new Exception("Exception in work()");
    }
}
					

public class AutoCloseableTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (AutoCloseableResource resource = new AutoCloseableResource()) {
            resource.work();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}
					

The AutoCloseableResource class implements java.lang.AutoCloseable and can thus be used as part of a try-with-resources statement, as illustrated in the AutoCloseableTest.main(...) method. Intentionally, we added some console output, and we throw exceptions both in the work() and close() methods of the class. Running the program yields the following output:

in work()
in close()
java.lang.Exception: Exception in work()
	at AutoCloseableResource.work(AutoCloseableResource.java:21)
	at AutoCloseableTest.main(AutoCloseableTest.java:15)
	Suppressed: java.lang.RuntimeException: Exception in close()
		at AutoCloseableResource.close(AutoCloseableResource.java:16)
		at AutoCloseableTest.main(AutoCloseableTest.java:16)
					

The output clearly proves that close() was indeed called BEFORE entering the catch block that should handle the exception. Yet, the Java developer discovering Java SE 7 might be surprised to see the exception stack trace line prefixed by "Suppressed: ...". It matches the exception thrown by the close() method, but you could never encounter such a form of stack trace prior to Java SE 7.

Suppressed Exceptions

If both the (explicit) try block and the (implicit) resource handling code throw an exception, then the try block exception is the one which will be thrown. The resource handling exception will be made available via the Throwable.getSupressed() method of the thrown exception. The Throwable[] Throwable.getSupressed() is a new method added to the Throwable class since Java SE 7 specifically for this purpose. If there were no suppressed exceptions then this will return an empty array.

The Java SE 7 extensions to java.lang.Throwable are as follows:

These extensions were introduced especially for supporting the try-with-resources statement and fixing exception-masking problems.

An exception can be thrown from the block of code associated with the try-with-resources statement. In the example copyFile above, an exception can be thrown from the try block, and up to two exceptions can be thrown from the try-with-resources statement when it tries to close the BufferedReader and BufferedWriter objects. If an exception is thrown from the try block and one or more exceptions are thrown from the try-with-resources statement, then those exceptions thrown from the try-with-resources statement are SUPPRESSED, and the exception thrown by the try block is the one that is thrown by the copyFile method. You can retrieve these suppressed exceptions by calling the Throwable.getSuppressed method from the exception thrown by the try block.