Scala Try With Resource

Java 7 introduced try-with-resources, which is a handy feature. It automatically closes resources once done, such as InputStreams and Database connections. This seems to be missing from Scala. However this feature can be easily added to Scala through function currying.

Below is a definition of a tryWith function

def tryWith[R, T <: AutoCloseable](resource: T)(doWork: T => R): R = {
  try {
    doWork(resource)
  }
  finally {
    try {
      if (resource != null) {
        resource.close()
      }
    }
    catch {
      case e: Exception => throw e
    }
  }
}

There are 2 functions. The first function takes an AutoCloseable resource. The second function uses the resource. The try finally block ensures the resource is closed once the second function returns.

Below is how the function can be used:

val request = new HttpGet("http://www.google.com")

val statusCode = tryWith(client.execute(request)){response =>
  response.getStatusLine.getStatusCode
}

client.execute() returns an AutoCloseable Response, which will be automatically closed. After return the StatusCode.