NullPointerException in finally blocks

Try blocks including a finally block that references a potential null object generating a NullPointerException.

In The DestinationView.sendTextMessage(java.util.Map, ...) method for example (http://grepcode.com/file/repo1.maven.org/maven2/org.apache.activemq/activemq-broker/5.11.1/org/apache/activemq/broker/jmx/DestinationView.java#DestinationView.sendTextMessage%28java.util.Map%2Cjava.lang.String%2Cjava.lang.String%2Cjava.lang.String%29), I noticed code like the following:
Connection connection = null;
try

{ connection = cf.createConnection(userName, password); ... return msg.getJMSMessageID(); }

finally

{ connection.close(); }

There is no catch block and since an exception in the createConnection method could be thrown, connection would be null in the finally block, causing a NPE and masking the real exception.

There may be other forms of this bad style which a code style checker should be able to locate for you.