String to Int in java - Likely bad data, need to avoid exceptions

Question

Seeing as Java doesn\'t have nullable types, nor does it have a TryParse(), how do you handle input validation without throwing an exceptions?

The usual way:

Answer 1

I'm sure it is bad form, but I have a set of static methods on a Utilities class that do things like Utilities.tryParseInt(String value) which returns 0 if the String is unparseable and Utilities.tryParseInt(String value, int defaultValue) which allows you to specify a value to use if parseInt() throws an exception.

I believe there are times when returning a known value on bad input is perfectly acceptable. A very contrived example: you ask the user for a date in the format YYYYMMDD and they give you bad input. It may be perfectly acceptable to do something like Utilities.tryParseInt(date, 19000101) or Utilities.tryParseInt(date, 29991231); depending on the program requirements.