[prog] Exceptions in Java 1.4.1 -- getMessage()

[Christina Zeeh]

Hi,

I hava a program that gets several command line arguments and needs to 
catch exceptions when something is wrong with the arguments and output 
an "informative" error message. The problem is: all my pretty error 
messages that use Throwable's getMessage() method are looking a lot 
different on Java 1.4.1 than on older platforms. To illustrate that, 
here is a simple example:

public class Test{
     public static void main(String[] args){
         try{
             int myNumber = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
             myNumber++;
             System.out.println(myNumber);
         }
         catch (NumberFormatException e){
             System.err.println(e.getMessage() + " is not an integer!");
             System.exit(1);
         }
     }
}

The following output is produced if the program is run on Java < 1.4.1:

 > java Test 22
23
 > java Test foo
foo is not an integer!

When run on Java 1.4.1, the following output results:

 > java Test 22
23
 > java Test foo
For input string: "foo" is not an integer!

So the result of "getMessage()" is a lot different on Java 1.4.1. Any 
ideas how to get the same output on both platforms? Or any other 
suggestions what I can do differently? I need to output "informative" 
error messages when something is wrong with the command line arguments.

Thanks for any help ...

Christina

-- 
"I smile because I have no idea what's going on."