Try/catch and 'cannot resolve symbol'

Question

I am relatively new to java programming and something has me puzzled...
Why do I get a 'cannot resolve symbol' message when I include a variable definition in a try/catch section. When I put it/them before the 'try' statement it compiles as expected. How are statements inside a try compiled differently than those outside?
try {
    StringBuffer pageBuffer = new StringBuffer();
    String inputLine;
    BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
       new InputStreamReader( theURL.openStream() ) );
    while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {
         System.out.println(inputLine);
        pageBuffer.append(inputLine);
    in.close();
} catch (Exception ignored) {}C:\Projects\WebExplorer\PageVisitor.java:142: cannot resolve symbol
symbol : variable pageBuffer
location: class PageVisitor
     return pageBuffer.toString();
Paul

Answer 1

A try block is just like any other block delimited by {...} in that all variables declared inside it are local to that block. I.e. they are not visible or usable anywhere outside it. Your pageBuffer variable, for example, is a local variable that can only be used inside the try-block in which it is declared.
Your obvious solution, knowing that, is to declare the variables outside the try and catch blocks. Remember to initialize them (even to null), otherwise the compiler will complain about variables that may not have been initialized.