diff --git a/java/external/src/org/xml/sax/helpers/XMLReaderFactory.java b/java/external/src/org/xml/sax/helpers/XMLReaderFactory.java
index b3b75de..f297611 100644
--- a/java/external/src/org/xml/sax/helpers/XMLReaderFactory.java
+++ b/java/external/src/org/xml/sax/helpers/XMLReaderFactory.java
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 
 package org.xml.sax.helpers;
 import java.io.BufferedReader;
+import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
 import org.xml.sax.XMLReader;
@@ -59,6 +60,11 @@ final public class XMLReaderFactory
     
     private static final String property = "org.xml.sax.driver";
     
+    /**
+     * Default columns per line.
+     */
+    private static final int DEFAULT_LINE_LENGTH = 80;
+    
     /**
      * Attempt to create an XMLReader from system defaults.
      * In environments which can support it, the name of the XMLReader
@@ -155,19 +161,27 @@ final public class XMLReaderFactory
                 // jkesselm]
                 BufferedReader rd;
                 try {
-                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"));
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8"), DEFAULT_LINE_LENGTH);
                 } catch (java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
-                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is));
+                    rd = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is), DEFAULT_LINE_LENGTH);
                 }
                 
                 try {
                     // XXX Does not handle all possible input as specified by the
                     // Jar Service Provider specification
                     className = rd.readLine();
-                    rd.close();
-                } catch (Exception x) {
+                } 
+                catch (Exception x) {
                     // No provider found
                 } 
+                finally {
+                    try { 
+                        // try to close the reader. 
+                        rd.close(); 
+                    } 
+                    // Ignore the exception. 
+                    catch (IOException exc) {}
+                }
             }
         }