Clob to String using Java

public String stringValue(Clob clob) {
BufferedReader br = null;
StringBuffer buffer = null;
try {
br = new BufferedReader(clob.getCharacterStream());
int c;
buffer = new StringBuffer();
while ((c = br.read()) != -1) {
buffer.append((char) c);
}
return buffer.toString();
} catch (SQLException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} finally {
if (br != null)
try {
br.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
return buffer.toString();
}