Why is try-with-resources catch block selectively optional?

Question

I read that the catch block in try-with-resources is optional. I\'ve tried creating a Connection object in a try-with-resources block, with no subsequ

Answer 1

Not every Java class (!) throws an exception. Sometimes you just want to use a try-with-resources to use the auto-close feature, and nothing else.

BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path));
try {
    return br.readLine();
} finally {
    if (br != null) br.close();
}

This the catch is optional because readLine() doesn't throw a (checked) exception.

Yes, close() could throw an exception, but the try-with-resources handles that too.

try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path))) {
    return br.readLine();
} 

So this try-with-resources doesn't need a catch.