Am I using the Java 7 try-with-resources correctly

Question

I am expecting the buffered reader and file reader to close and the resources released if the exception is throw.

public static Object[] fromFile(String filePath) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException
{
    try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filePath)))
    {
        return read(br);
    } 
}

However, is there a requirement to have a catch clause for successful closure?

EDIT:

Essentially, is the above code in Java 7 equivalent to the below for Java 6:

public static Object[] fromFile(String filePath) throws FileNotFoundException, IOException
{

    BufferedReader br = null;

    try
    {
        br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filePath));

        return read(br);
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        throw ex;
    }
    finally
    {
        try
        {
            if (br != null) br.close();
        }
        catch(Exception ex)
        {
        }
    }

    return null;
}

Answer 1

It's correct and there's no requirement for catch clause. Oracle java 7 doc says the resource will be closed regardless of whether an exception is actually thrown or not.

You should use a catch clause only if you want to react upon the exception. The catch clause will be executed after the resource is closed.

Here's a snippet from Oracle's tutorial:

The following example reads the first line from a file. It uses an instance of BufferedReader to read data from the file. BufferedReader is a resource that must be closed after the program is finished with it:

static String readFirstLineFromFile(String path) throws IOException {
    try (BufferedReader br =
                   new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path))) {
        return br.readLine();
    }
} // In this example, the resource declared in the try-with-resources statement is a BufferedReader.

... Because the BufferedReader instance is declared in a try-with-resource statement, it will be closed regardless of whether the try statement completes normally or abruptly (as a result of the method BufferedReader.readLine throwing an IOException).

EDIT

Regarding the new edited question:

The code in Java 6 executes the catch and afterwards the finally block. This causes the resources to be still potentially opened in the catch block.

In Java 7 syntax, resources are closed before the catch block, so resources are already closed during the catch block execution. This is documented in the above link:

In a try-with-resources statement, any catch or finally block is run after the resources declared have been closed.