How to check if a String is numeric in Java

Question

How would you check if a String was a number before parsing it?

Answer 1

Exceptions are expensive, but in this case the RegEx takes much longer. The code below shows a simple test of two functions -- one using exceptions and one using regex. On my machine the RegEx version is 10 times slower than the exception.

import java.util.Date;


public class IsNumeric {

public static boolean isNumericOne(String s) {
    return s.matches("-?\\d+(\\.\\d+)?");  //match a number with optional '-' and decimal.      
}

public static boolean isNumericTwo(String s) {
    try {
        Double.parseDouble(s);
        return true;
    } catch (Exception e) {
        return false;
    }
}

public static void main(String [] args) {

    String test = "12345.F";

    long before = new Date().getTime();     
    for(int x=0;x<1000000;++x) {
        //isNumericTwo(test);
        isNumericOne(test);
    }
    long after = new Date().getTime();

    System.out.println(after-before);

}

}