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From: Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer
Subject: unnecessary code in Oracle example?
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 10:38:09 -0600
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I'm reading up on Java 7's try-with-resource statement and looking at
the tutorial at

http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/exceptions/tryResourceClose.html

which includes the following code: 

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

As a matter of habit, I always write that pattern as 


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

on the theory that if you reach that point br can never be null, so the
test is both redundant and confusing.  On the other hand, I might be
wrong.  Is there a reason to test for null in the finally block?

-- 
Jim Janney