What's the best way to check if a String represents an integer in Java?

Question

I normally use the following idiom to check if a String can be converted to an integer.

public boolean isInteger( String input ) {
    try {
        Integer.         


        

Answer 1

I copied the code from rally25rs answer and added some tests for non-integer data. The results are undeniably in favor of the method posted by Jonas Klemming. The results for the Exception method that I originally posted are pretty good when you have integer data, but they're the worst when you don't, while the results for the RegEx solution (that I'll bet a lot of people use) were consistently bad. See Felipe's answer for a compiled regex example, which is much faster.

public void runTests()
{
    String big_int = "1234567890";
    String non_int = "1234XY7890";

    long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByException(big_int);
    long endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("ByException - integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);

    startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByException(non_int);
    endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("ByException - non-integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);

    startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByRegex(big_int);
    endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("\nByRegex - integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);

    startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByRegex(non_int);
    endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("ByRegex - non-integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);

    startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByJonas(big_int);
    endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("\nByJonas - integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);

    startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
        IsInt_ByJonas(non_int);
    endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    System.out.print("ByJonas - non-integer data: ");
    System.out.println(endTime - startTime);
}

private boolean IsInt_ByException(String str)
{
    try
    {
        Integer.parseInt(str);
        return true;
    }
    catch(NumberFormatException nfe)
    {
        return false;
    }
}

private boolean IsInt_ByRegex(String str)
{
    return str.matches("^-?\\d+$");
}

public boolean IsInt_ByJonas(String str)
{
    if (str == null) {
            return false;
    }
    int length = str.length();
    if (length == 0) {
            return false;
    }
    int i = 0;
    if (str.charAt(0) == '-') {
            if (length == 1) {
                    return false;
            }
            i = 1;
    }
    for (; i < length; i++) {
            char c = str.charAt(i);
            if (c <= '/' || c >= ':') {
                    return false;
            }
    }
    return true;
}

Results:

ByException - integer data: 47
ByException - non-integer data: 547

ByRegex - integer data: 390
ByRegex - non-integer data: 313

ByJonas - integer data: 0
ByJonas - non-integer data: 16