Question

Considering this code, can I be absolutely sure that the finally block always executes, no matter what something() is?

try {       something();       return success;   }   catch (Exception e) {        return failure;   }   finally {       System.out.println('I don't know if this will get printed out'); } 

Answer 1

Yes, finally will be called after the execution of the try or catch code blocks.

The only times finally won’t be called are:

1. If you invoke System.exit()
2. If you invoke Runtime.getRuntime().halt(exitStatus)
3. If the JVM crashes first
4. If the JVM reaches an infinite loop (or some other non-interruptable, non-terminating statement) in the try or catch block
5. If the OS forcibly terminates the JVM process; e.g., kill -9 <pid> on UNIX
6. If the host system dies; e.g., power failure, hardware error, OS panic, et cetera
7. If the finally block is going to be executed by a daemon thread and all other non-daemon threads exit before finally is called