From the API for Byte.parseByte() (which Byte(String) uses):
An exception of type NumberFormatException is thrown if any of the following situations occurs:
* The first argument is null or is a string of length zero.
* The radix is either smaller than Character.MIN_RADIX or larger than Character.MAX_RADIX.
* Any character of the string is not a digit of the specified radix, except that the first character may be a minus sign '-' ('\u002D') provided that the string is longer than length 1.
* The value represented by the string is not a value of type byte.
[ May 12, 2004: Message edited by: Barry Gaunt ]