Java 7 Automatic Resource Management

One of the features in Java 7 is Automatic Resource Management. The idea was presented by Josh Bloch. The IO resources in Java need to close manually like FileInputStream, java.io.InputStream, OutputStream, Reader, Writer etc. The idea with this proposal is that it should not be the responsibility of the developer for disposing out these resources much like automatic garbage collection concept.

We usually write this kind of code for IO resources as below.

FileInputStream input = null;            
try {              
    input = new FileInputStream(configResource);               
    wfConfiguration = wfConfiguration.parseInputStream(input);           
} catch (IOException ioe) {               
      throw new RuntimeException(ioe);           
} finally {               
      if (input != null) {                   
           try {                       
             input.close();                   
           } catch (IOException ioe2) {                       
             throw new RuntimeException(ioe2);                   
           }               
      }           
}

The same code can be written in Java 7 as

FileInputStream input = null;            
try (input = new FileInputStream(configResource)) {         
      wfConfiguration = wfConfiguration.parseInputStream(input);     
} catch (IOException ioe) {               
      throw new RuntimeException(ioe);       
}

Hope you like the new syntax.

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