[SPBS]

I think anything other than deferring Close() and then calling Close() again explicitly is overengineering. Like anything that requires creating a cleanup function, capturing a named return value, requires contorting in unnatural ways to handle a very common scenario. Just... defer Close() the soonest you can (after checking for errors), then call Close() again at the end. Most sane providers of Close() should handle being called multiple times (I know os.File does, as well as sql.Tx ).