Closing a Java FileInputStream

For Java 7 and above try-with-resources should be used:

try (InputStream in = new FileInputStream(file)) {
  // TODO: work
} catch (IOException e) {
  // TODO: handle error
}

If you’re stuck on Java 6 or below…

This pattern avoids mucking around with null:

    try {
        InputStream in = new FileInputStream(file);
        try {
            // TODO: work
        } finally {
            in.close();
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO: error handling
    }

For a more detail on how to effectively deal with close, read this blog post: Java: how not to make a mess of stream handling. It has more sample code, more depth and covers the pitfalls of wrapping close in a catch block.