I'm checking if the variable is initialized but at that point netbeans is giving me `variable reader might not have been initialized` warning. How do I fix/suppress this?

This is my code (summary):

```
final Reader reader;
try {
        reader = new Reader(directory);
        //additional stuff that can cause an exception
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        //do stuff
    } finally {
        if (reader != null);
    }

```

The point of the if check is to determine whether it is initialized. 

And what is the best practice for this?