Should try...catch go inside or outside a loop?
- by mmyers
I have a loop that looks something like this:
for(int i = 0; i < max; i++) {
String myString = ...;
float myNum = Float.parseFloat(myString);
myFloats[i] = myNum;
}
This is the main content of a method whose sole purpose is to return the array of floats. I want this method to return null if there is an error, so I put the loop inside a try...catch block, like this:
try {
for(int i = 0; i < max; i++) {
String myString = ...;
float myNum = Float.parseFloat(myString);
myFloats[i] = myNum;
}
} catch (NumberFormatException ex) {
return null;
}
But then I also thought of putting the try...catch block inside the loop, like this:
for(int i = 0; i < max; i++) {
String myString = ...;
try {
float myNum = Float.parseFloat(myString);
} catch (NumberFormatException ex) {
return null;
}
myFloats[i] = myNum;
}
So my question is: is there any reason, performance or otherwise, to prefer one over the other?
EDIT: The consensus seems to be that it is cleaner to put the loop inside the try/catch, possibly inside its own method. However, there is still debate on which is faster. Can someone test this and come back with a unified answer? (EDIT: did it myself, but voted up Jeffrey and Ray's answers)
