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

If you are not concerned with potential overflow problems this function will perform about 20-30 times faster than using Integer.parseInt().

public static boolean isInteger(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 < '0' || c > '9') {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

You have it, but you should only catch NumberFormatException.

Did a quick benchmark. Exceptions aren't actually that expensivve, unless you start popping back multiple methods and the JVM has to do a lot of work to get the execution stack in place. When staying in the same method, they aren't bad performers.

 public void RunTests()
 {
     String str = "1234567890";

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

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

     startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
     for(int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
         IsInt_ByJonas(str);
     endTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
     System.out.print("ByJonas: ");
     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;
 }

Output:

ByException: 31

ByRegex: 453 (note: re-compiling the pattern every time)

ByJonas: 16

I do agree that Jonas K's solution is the most robust too. Looks like he wins :)

org.apache.commons.lang.StringUtils.isNumeric 

though Java's standard lib really misses such utility functions

I think that Apache Commons is a "must have" for every Java programmer

too bad it isn't ported to Java5 yet

It partly depend on what you mean by "can be converted to an integer".

If you mean "can be converted into an int in Java" then the answer from Jonas is a good start, but doesn't quite finish the job. It would pass 999999999999999999999999999999 for example. I would add the normal try/catch call from your own question at the end of the method.

The character-by-character checks will efficiently reject "not an integer at all" cases, leaving "it's an integer but Java can't handle it" cases to be caught by the slower exception route. You could do this bit by hand too, but it would be a lot more complicated.

Just one comment about regexp. Every example provided here is wrong!. If you want to use regexp don't forget that compiling the pattern take a lot of time. This:

str.matches("^-?\\d+$")

and also this:

Pattern.matches("-?\\d+", input);

causes compile of pattern in every method call. To used it correctly follow:

import java.util.regex.Pattern;

/**
 * @author Rastislav Komara
 */
public class NaturalNumberChecker {
    public static final Pattern PATTERN = Pattern.compile("^\\d+$");

    boolean isNaturalNumber(CharSequence input) {
        return input != null && PATTERN.matcher(input).matches();
    }
}

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

This is shorter, but shorter isn't necessarily better (and it won't catch integer values which are out of range, as pointed out in danatel's comment):

input.matches("^-?\\d+$");

Personally, since the implementation is squirrelled away in a helper method and correctness trumps length, I would just go with something like what you have (minus catching the base Exception class rather than NumberFormatException).

How about:

return Pattern.matches("-?\\d+", input);

You can also use the Scanner class, and use hasNextInt() - and this allows you to test for other types, too, like floats, etc.

What you did works, but you probably shouldn't always check that way. Throwing exceptions should be reserved for "exceptional" situations (maybe that fits in your case, though), and are very costly in terms of performance.

This would work only for positive integers.

public static boolean isInt(String str) {
    if (str != null && str.length() != 0) {
        for (int i = 0; i < str.length(); i++) {
            if (!Character.isDigit(str.charAt(i))) return false;
        }
    }
    return true;        
}

When explanations are more important than performance

I noticed many discussions centering how efficient certain solutions are, but none on why an string is not an integer. Also, everyone seemed to assume that the number "2.00" is not equal to "2". Mathematically and humanly speaking, they are equal (even though computer science says that they are not, and for good reason). This is why the "Integer.parseInt" solutions above are weak (depending on your requirements).

At any rate, to make software smarter and more human-friendly, we need to create software that thinks like we do and explains why something failed. In this case:

public static boolean isIntegerFromDecimalString(String possibleInteger) {
possibleInteger = possibleInteger.trim();
try {
    // Integer parsing works great for "regular" integers like 42 or 13.
    int num = Integer.parseInt(possibleInteger);
    System.out.println("The possibleInteger="+possibleInteger+" is a pure integer.");
    return true;
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
    if (possibleInteger.equals(".")) {
        System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is NOT an integer because it is only a decimal point.");
        return false;
    } else if (possibleInteger.startsWith(".") && possibleInteger.matches("\\.[0-9]*")) {
        if (possibleInteger.matches("\\.[0]*")) {
            System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is an integer because it starts with a decimal point and afterwards is all zeros.");
            return true;
        } else {
            System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is NOT an integer because it starts with a decimal point and afterwards is not all zeros.");
            return false;
        }
    } else if (possibleInteger.endsWith(".")  && possibleInteger.matches("[0-9]*\\.")) {
        System.out.println("The possibleInteger="+possibleInteger+" is an impure integer (ends with decimal point).");
        return true;
    } else if (possibleInteger.contains(".")) {
        String[] partsOfPossibleInteger = possibleInteger.split("\\.");
        if (partsOfPossibleInteger.length == 2) {
            //System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is split into '" + partsOfPossibleInteger[0] + "' and '" + partsOfPossibleInteger[1] + "'.");
            if (partsOfPossibleInteger[0].matches("[0-9]*")) {
                if (partsOfPossibleInteger[1].matches("[0]*")) {
                    System.out.println("The possibleInteger="+possibleInteger+" is an impure integer (ends with all zeros after the decimal point).");
                    return true;
                } else if (partsOfPossibleInteger[1].matches("[0-9]*")) {
                    System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is NOT an integer because it the numbers after the decimal point (" + 
                                partsOfPossibleInteger[1] + ") are not all zeros.");
                    return false;
                } else {
                    System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is NOT an integer because it the 'numbers' after the decimal point (" + 
                            partsOfPossibleInteger[1] + ") are not all numeric digits.");
                    return false;
                }
            } else {
                System.out.println("The possibleInteger=" + possibleInteger + " is NOT an integer because it the 'number' before the decimal point (" + 
                        partsOfPossibleInteger[0] + ") is not a number.");
                return false;
            }
        } else {
            System.out.println("The possibleInteger="+possibleInteger+" is NOT an integer because it has a strange number of decimal-period separated parts (" +
                    partsOfPossibleInteger.length + ").");
            return false;
        }
    } // else
    System.out.println("The possibleInteger='"+possibleInteger+"' is NOT an integer, even though it has no decimal point.");
    return false;
}
}

Test code:

String[] testData = {"0", "0.", "0.0", ".000", "2", "2.", "2.0", "2.0000", "3.14159", ".0001", ".", "$4.0", "3E24", "6.0221409e+23"};
int i = 0;
for (String possibleInteger : testData ) {
    System.out.println("");
    System.out.println(i + ". possibleInteger='" + possibleInteger +"' isIntegerFromDecimalString=" + isIntegerFromDecimalString(possibleInteger));
    i++;
}

I do not like method with regex, because regex can not check ranges (Integer.MIN_VALUE, Integer.MAX_VALUE).

If you expect int value in most cases, and not int is something uncommon, then I suggest version with Integer.valueOf or Integer.parseInt with NumberFormatException catching. Advantage of this approach - your code has good readability:

public static boolean isInt(String s) {
  try {
    Integer.parseInt(s);
    return true;
  } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
    return false;
  }
}

If you need to check if String is integer, and care about perfomance then the best way will be to use java jdk implementation of Integer.parseInt, but little modified (replacing throw with return false):

This function has good perfomence and garantee right result:

   public static boolean isInt(String s) {
    int radix = 10;

    if (s == null) {
        return false;
    }

    if (radix < Character.MIN_RADIX) {
        return false;
    }

    if (radix > Character.MAX_RADIX) {
        return false;
    }

    int result = 0;
    boolean negative = false;
    int i = 0, len = s.length();
    int limit = -Integer.MAX_VALUE;
    int multmin;
    int digit;

    if (len > 0) {
        char firstChar = s.charAt(0);
        if (firstChar < '0') { // Possible leading "+" or "-"
            if (firstChar == '-') {
                negative = true;
                limit = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
            } else if (firstChar != '+')
                return false;

            if (len == 1) // Cannot have lone "+" or "-"
                return false;
            i++;
        }
        multmin = limit / radix;
        while (i < len) {
            // Accumulating negatively avoids surprises near MAX_VALUE
            digit = Character.digit(s.charAt(i++), radix);
            if (digit < 0) {
                return false;
            }
            if (result < multmin) {
                return false;
            }
            result *= radix;
            if (result < limit + digit) {
                return false;
            }
            result -= digit;
        }
    } else {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

You could:

1. Check that the string is a number
2. Check that it is not too long to be parsed as a long
3. Check if the resulting long value is small enough to be represented by an int

(Assuming you for some reason would have to implement this yourself: you should probably first take a look at com.google.common.primitives.Ints.tryParse(String) and see if that is good enough for your purposes (as suggested in another answer).)

// Credit to Rastislav Komara’s answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/237895/1725151
private static final Pattern nonZero = Pattern.compile("^-?[1-9]\\d*$");

// See if `str` can be parsed as an `int` (does not trim)
// Strings like `0023` are rejected (leading zeros).
public static boolean parsableAsInt(@Nonnull String str) {
    if (str.isEmpty()) {
        return false;
    }
    if (str.equals("0")) {
        return true;
    }
    if (canParseAsLong(str)) {
        long value = Long.valueOf(str);
        if (value >= Integer.MIN_VALUE && value <= Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

private static boolean canParseAsLong(String str) {
    final int intMaxLength = 11;
    return str.length() <= intMaxLength && nonZero.matcher(str).matches();
}

This method can also be converted to return Optional<Integer> so that you don’t have to parse the string twice in the client code (once to check if it’s possible and the second time to do it “for real”). For example:

if (canParseAsLong(str)) {
    long value = Long.valueOf(str);
    if (value >= Integer.MIN_VALUE && value <= Integer.MAX_VALUE) {
        return Optional.of((int) value);
    }
}

a little improvement to @Jonas K anwser, this function will rule out one single operator like "*".

public boolean isInteger(String str) {
    // null pointer
    if (str == null) {
        return false;
    }
    int len = str.length();
    // empty string
    if (len == 0) {
        return false;
    }
    // one digit, cannot begin with 0
    if (len == 1) {
        char c = str.charAt(0);
        if ((c < '1') || (c > '9')) {
            return false;
        }
    }

    for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
        char c = str.charAt(i);
        // check positive, negative sign
        if (i == 0) {
            if (c == '-' || c == '+') {
                continue;
            }
        }
        // check each character matches [0-9]
        if ((c < '0') || (c > '9')) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

I recently (today) needed to figure out a quick way to do this and of course I was going to use the exception approach for ease when the monkey on the shoulder (conscience) woke up so it took me down this old familiar rabbit hole; no exceptions are not that much more expensive in fact sometimes exceptions are faster (old AIX multiprocessor systems) but regardless it’s to elegant so I did something that the younger me never did and to my amazement nobody here did either (apologize if someone did and I missed it I honestly did not find) : so what did I think we all missed; taking a look at how the JRE implemented it, yes they threw an exception but we can always skip that part.

The younger me from 10 years ago would have felt this to be beneath him, but then again he is a loud mouthed show off with a poor temperament and a god complex so there is that.

I am putting this here for the benefit of anyone coming here in the future. Here is what I found:

public static int parseInt(String s, int radix) throws NumberFormatException
{
    /*
     * WARNING: This method may be invoked early during VM initialization
     * before IntegerCache is initialized. Care must be taken to not use
     * the valueOf method.
     */

    if (s == null) {
        throw new NumberFormatException("null");
    }

    if (radix < Character.MIN_RADIX) {
        throw new NumberFormatException("radix " + radix +
                                        " less than Character.MIN_RADIX");
    }

    if (radix > Character.MAX_RADIX) {
        throw new NumberFormatException("radix " + radix +
                                        " greater than Character.MAX_RADIX");
    }

    int result = 0;
    boolean negative = false;
    int i = 0, len = s.length();
    int limit = -Integer.MAX_VALUE;
    int multmin;
    int digit;

    if (len > 0) {
        char firstChar = s.charAt(0);
        if (firstChar < '0') { // Possible leading "+" or "-"
            if (firstChar == '-') {
                negative = true;
                limit = Integer.MIN_VALUE;
            } else if (firstChar != '+')
                throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);

            if (len == 1) // Cannot have lone "+" or "-"
                throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);
            i++;
        }
        multmin = limit / radix;
        while (i < len) {
            // Accumulating negatively avoids surprises near MAX_VALUE
            digit = Character.digit(s.charAt(i++),radix);
            if (digit < 0) {
                throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);
            }
            if (result < multmin) {
                throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);
            }
            result *= radix;
            if (result < limit + digit) {
                throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);
            }
            result -= digit;
        }
    } else {
        throw NumberFormatException.forInputString(s);
    }
    return negative ? result : -result;
}

several answers here saying to try parsing to an integer and catching the NumberFormatException but you should not do this.

That way would create exception object and generates a stack trace each time you called it and it was not an integer.

A better way with Java 8 would be to use a stream:

boolean isInteger = returnValue.chars().allMatch(Character::isDigit);

For kotlin, isDigitsOnly() (Also for Java's TextUtils.isDigitsOnly()) of String always returns false it has a negative sign in front though the rest of the character is digit only. For example -

/** For kotlin*/
var str = "-123" 
str.isDigitsOnly()  //Result will be false 

/** For Java */
String str = "-123"
TextUtils.isDigitsOnly(str) //Result will be also false 

So I made a quick fix by this -

 var isDigit=str.matches("-?\\d+(\\.\\d+)?".toRegex()) 
/** Result will be true for now*/

Number number;
try {
    number = NumberFormat.getInstance().parse("123");
} catch (ParseException e) {
    //not a number - do recovery.
    e.printStackTrace();
}
//use number

Integer.valueOf(string); 

works for me most of the time!