Validating input using java.util.Scanner

Question

I'm taking user input from System.in using a java.util.Scanner. I need to validate the input for things like:

• It must be a non-negative number
• It must be an alphabetical letter
• ... etc

What's the best way to do this?

Answer 1

You can check the ascii value for the characters and write your conditions.

Answer 2

If you are parsing string data from the console or similar, the best way is to use regular expressions. Read more on that here: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/releases/1.4regex/

Otherwise, to parse an int from a string, try Integer.parseInt(string). If the string is not a number, you will get an exception. Otherise you can then perform your checks on that value to make sure it is not negative.

String input;
int number;
try
{
    number = Integer.parseInt(input);
    if(number > 0)
    {
        System.out.println("You positive number is " + number);
    }
} catch (NumberFormatException ex)
{
     System.out.println("That is not a positive number!");
}

To get a character-only string, you would probably be better of looping over each character checking for digits, using for instance Character.isLetter(char).

String input
for(int i = 0; i<input.length(); i++)
{
   if(!Character.isLetter(input.charAt(i)))
   {
      System.out.println("This string does not contain only letters!");
      break;
   }
}

Good luck!

Answer 3

One idea:

try {
    int i = Integer.parseInt(myString);
    if (i < 0) {
        // Error, negative input
    }
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
    // Error, not a number.
}

There is also, in commons-lang library the CharUtils class that provides the methods isAsciiNumeric() to check that a character is a number, and isAsciiAlpha() to check that the character is a letter...