Is there any reason for calling close methods on the StreamWriter class? Why do I have to do it? If I don’t close the StreamWriter will I get some kind of undefined behavior?
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Is there any reason for calling close methods on the StreamWriter class? Why do I have to do it? If I don’t close the StreamWriter will I get some kind of undefined behavior?
Assuming you’re talking about java.io.OutputStreamWriter, yes, you should close it, in a finally block, when you don’t want to write anything more. This allows the underlying OutputStream to be closed. If the underlying OutputStream is a FileOutputStream, it will release the file descriptor (which is a limited OS resource), and allow other aps to read the file. If it’s a SocketOutputSTream, it will signal to the other side that it shouldn’t expect anything more from the socket input stream.
In general, streams and readers/writers must always be closed properly. If using Java 7, use the new try-with-resources construct to make sure it’s done automatically for you.