Wrong exception being thrown

[Jerick]

I'm trying to account for any value outside of 1 to 12 or a name of a month. I'm passing in a string to this method. I then try to parse it into an int and do an if statement to see if it's between 1 and 12. If it's not an int then it goes down and a for-loop checks to see if it's a name of a month.

The problem is that if I add a throw new IllegalArgumentException to the catch block and pass in "Saturday" it throws the Illegal month number here message instead of Invalid month name string message. If I leave the catch block empty, then numbers outside the range of 1 to 12 go down and throw the Invalid month name string message.

      public void setMonthName(String inSetString)
      {
         int i = 0;
         monthNumber = -1;
 
         try
         {
            i = Integer.parseInt(inSetString);
            if (i >= 1 && i <= 12)
            {
                    monthNumber = i;
            }
         }
            catch (IllegalArgumentException e)
            {        
 
            }
 
      // if it gets to here we know it's a string
         for (int index = 0; index < monthNames.length; index++)
         {
            if (monthNames[index].equalsIgnoreCase(inSetString))
            {
               monthNumber = index;
            }
         }
         if (monthNumber == -1)
         {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid month name string: " + inSetString);
         }
      }

[r035198x]

We know it's not a number if we get inside the catch not after the catch so your string logic must go inside the catch block.

try
    {
      System.out.println("first: " + inSetString);
      i = Integer.parseInt(inSetString);
      System.out.println("next: " + inSetString);
      if ( i >= 1 && i <= 12 )
      {
        monthNumber = i;
      }
    }
    catch (NumberFormatException e)
    {
      // if it gets to here we know it's a string
      for (int index = 0; index < monthNames.length; index++)
      {
        if ( monthNames[index].equalsIgnoreCase(inSetString) )
        {
          monthNumber = index;
        }
      }
    }
    if ( monthNumber == -1 )
    {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid month name string: " + inSetString);
    }
 
 

Also consider the case when someone passes in a number that is not between 1 and 12. What happens then?

[Jerick]

With the code I posted, strings such as "January" or "Saturday" were being hanlded correctly, but numbers outside of 1 to 12 were being sent down to the 2nd IllegalArgumentException instead of the 1st one and giving the wrong System.out.print() message.

If I add a throw new IllegalArgumentException to the catch block, then numbers outside of 1 to 12 get handled correctly, but strings such as "January" or "Saturday" are being given the 1st IllegalArgumentException instead of the 2nd one, and giving the wrong System.out.print() message.

So either way, it's not working for both types of input.

[r035198x]

The code you posted has an empty catch block. Compare that with the code I posted.

[Jerick]

In the code I posted, a string like "December" just skips over the empty catch block and goes to the for-loop.

But here's some code where I entered the for-loop into the catch block. Strings like "December" are working, but if I enter in a number outside of 1 to 12, it passes the 1st IllegalArgumentException and goes to the 2nd one and gives the wrong System.out.print()

      public void setMonthName(String inSetString)
      {
         int i = 0;
         monthNumber = -1;
 
         try
         {
            i = Integer.parseInt(inSetString);
            if (i < 1 || i > 12)
            {
               throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal month number here2: " + inSetString);
            }
            else
            {
               monthNumber = i;
            }
 
         }
            catch (IllegalArgumentException e)
            {        
            // if it gets to here we know it's a string
               for (int index = 0; index < monthNames.length; index++)
               {
                  if (monthNames[index].equalsIgnoreCase(inSetString))
                  {
                     monthNumber = index + 1;
                  }
               }
               if (monthNumber == -1)
               {
                  throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid month name string: " + inSetString);
               }
            }
      }

[r035198x]

Did you read my first reply at all?

[Jerick]

Yup... I added an if else statement to the code I just posted which is why numbers between 1 to 12 aren't working anymore. Simply moving the for-loop into the catch doesn't change anything.

Did YOU read my first post? I explained all of this. Read the 2nd paragraph in my first post, please.

[r035198x]

Don't do

if (i < 1 || i > 12)
   {
       throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal month number here2: " + inSetString);
   }
 

if (i < 1 || i > 12) then monthNumber is never assigned a value which means that it's value is -1 after the catch block.

Do you see that in my code

 if ( monthNumber == -1 )
    {
      throw new IllegalArgumentException("Invalid month name string: " + inSetString);
    }
 

is after the catch block?

[Jerick]

I put the -1 there so that if the value doesn't get changed, then that means it didn't get parsed into an int, which means it's a string. If it doesn't go through the for-loop, then the value still isn't changed and it throws the exception.

[r035198x]

So structure your code like this:

 try
    {
      System.out.println("first: " + inSetString);
      i = Integer.parseInt(inSetString);
      System.out.println("next: " + inSetString);
      if ( i >= 1 && i <= 12 )
      {
        monthNumber = i;
      }
    }
    catch (NumberFormatException e)
    {
      // if it gets to here we know it's a string
      for (int index = 0; index < monthNames.length; index++)
      {
        if ( monthNames[index].equalsIgnoreCase(inSetString) )
        {
          monthNumber = index;
        }
      }
      if ( monthNumber == -1 )
      {
        throw new NumberFormatException("Invalid month name string: " + inSetString);
      }
    }
    if ( monthNumber == -1 )
    {
      throw new NumberFormatException("Illegal month Number: " + inSetString);
    }
 

[Jerick]

That looks like it would use the correct System.out.print() messages. But the problem is that I've been required to use IllegalArgumentException.

[r035198x]

Just change the NumberFormatException to IllegalArgumentException.

[Jerick]

Ok, that works. I see what the problem was now. Thanks a lot.