Welcome to the Treehouse Community
Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.
Looking to learn something new?
Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.
Start your free trialSandy Woods
1,082 PointsParsing Int
Why can't we just use int age = console.readLine("Enter you're age: "); Instead of: String ageAsString = console.readLine("How old are you? "); int age = Integer.parseInt(ageAsString);
2 Answers
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse TeacherHi there! It's because any data coming in from the prompt is coming in as a string (and this is also true of other languages besides Java). And you would be trying to assign that string to an integer variable which would cause an error. So we read in the age which looks like a number to the person writing it, but is actually a string. Then we convert that number into an integer.
Hope this helps!
Sandy Woods
1,082 PointsGreat. So, in order to go from one data type to another, parsing is required?
A X
12,842 PointsSandy Woods : Yep, parsing is a way (most likely not the only way) to move data from one type to another as needed.