What is the benefit to use "finally" after try-catch block in java? [closed]

Question

The "finally" block is always executed when the try-catch ends, either in case of exception or not. But also every line of code outside and after the try-catch is always executed. So, why should I use the finally statement?

Example:

try {     //code... } catch (Exception e) {     //code... } finally {     System.out.println("This line is always printed"); } System.out.println("Also this line is always printed !! So why to use 'finally'?? "); 

Answer 1

The most useful case is when you need to release some resources :

InputStream is = ... try {     //code... } catch (Exception e) {     //code... } finally {     is.close(); } 

More generally, you use it when you want to be sure your code is executed at the end, even if there was an exception during execution :

long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); try {     //code... } catch (Exception e) {     //code... } finally {     long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();     System.out.println("Operation took " + (endTime-startTime) + " ms"); } 

The idea of this finally block always being executed is that it's not the case for the first line following the whole block

• if the catch block lets some throwable pass
• if it rethrows itself an exception, which is very frequent

Answer 2

The last System.out.println (after the finally block) will only be run if the exception thrown in the try block is actuaclly caught with a catch block and if the execution is not interrupted by e.g. a return statement.

In your example, the finally block will always be run, but the execution will only continue past the finally block if no Error is thrown in the try block (it would not be caught), if no Throwable is thrown in the catch block and there is no other statement, which will interrupt execution.