Java substring: 'string index out of range'

Question

I\'m guessing I\'m getting this error because the string is trying to substring a null value. But wouldn\'t the \".length() > 0\" part eliminate

Answer 1

itemdescription is shorter than 38 chars. Which is why the StringOutOfBoundsException is being thrown.

Checking .length() > 0 simply makes sure the String has some not-null value, what you need to do is check that the length is long enough. You could try:

if(itemdescription.length() > 38)
  ...