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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T03:43:16+00:00

In my Java code, I start a new process, then obtain its input stream

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In my Java code, I start a new process, then obtain its input stream to read it:

BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));

FindBugs reports an error here:

may fail to close stream
Pattern id: OS_OPEN_STREAM, type: OS, category: BAD_PRACTICE

Must I close the InputStream of another process? And what’s more, according to its Javadoc, InputStream#close() does nothing. So is this a false positive, or should I really close the input stream of the process when I’m done?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    In this case, you want to close() the Reader, which will close its underlying streams. Yes, it’s always good practice to close streams, even if at the moment you know the implementation you’re looking at doesn’t do anything (though, in fact, it does here!). What if that changed later?

    FindBugs is only there to warn about possible errors; it can’t always know for sure.

    Finally yes, your Java process owns the process and Process object you spawned. You most definitely need to close that and the output stream. Nobody else is using them, and, it’s important to do such things to avoid OS-related stream funny business.

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