Purpose of close() ?

[fatabass]

Hi.

My Code is:

public class TestClass {
	
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		
		PrintWriter outputStream = null;
		
		try
		{
			outputStream = new PrintWriter(new FileOutputStream("c:/stuff.txt"));
		}
		catch(FileNotFoundException e)
		{
		}
		
		System.out.println("Writing to file.");
		
		for(int i = 0;i<10000;i++)
		{
			outputStream.println(i);
		}
		
		//outputStream.close();
	}
}

So my question is:

How does JAVA decide on when to call .close?

When outputStream.close is commented out:

When I put i<100 for example, there are no values in my stuff.txt file.
When I put a larger number, such as 10000, I see some values in my stuff.txt file, up to ~8500 for example.

If I do not comment out close(), then whatever the number i is, I get correct amount of integers in my stuff.txt

Any ideas?

[Norm]

If you do not call close, data could be left in a buffer waiting for more data to fill the buffer before doing a write to disk.
Its best to close the file as soon as the writing or reading is done.

[fatabass]

Thanks.

But how does it decide when to do that ?

And in a Book called Absolute Java (3rd Edition) it says close is always called automatically when program finishes. It doesn't look so true?

[Norm]

Its better if you do it, rather than hope the JVM will do it.

[Tolls]

close() calls flush() before closing the stream (in most stream cases).
flush() sends the contents of the buffer to wherever it is supposed to go (disk in your case).

And that book is wrong. There is no guarantee that a stream will close as a program exits.
You should do so explicitly, and in a finally block.