Cannot format given Object as a Number

[Jeff Allison]

Hopefully this is a simple one. I'm new to Java so it wouldn't surprise me if I'm just missing something obvious. I've got a JFormattedTextField and a NumberFormat defined as follows:

        antdFormat = NumberFormat.getIntegerInstance();
        antdField = new JFormattedTextField(antdFormat);

When this code runs, I get the following exception:

Exception in thread "Win32SerialPort Notification thread" java.lang.IllegalArgum
entException: Cannot format given Object as a Number

The exception is being thrown when the following line is executed:

antdField.setValue(value);

value is a String. I've tried different values, from 0 to 100 to 150 and they all cause the exception.

I just want a simple field to edit and display a value from 0 to 999999. I thought that using NumberFormat.getIntegerInstance would get me that, but it doesn't seem too happy. Any ideas?

[Joe Ess]

Dig the example from the API Documentation:

For example, in the following code an appropriate AbstractFormatterFactory and AbstractFormatter will be created to handle formatting of numbers:

JFormattedTextField tf = new JFormattedTextField();
tf.setValue(new Number(100));

It's expecting a numeric object, a subclass of java.lang.Number, and you are passing it a String.

[Jeff Allison]

It's expecting a numeric object, a subclass of java.lang.Number, and you are passing it a String.

Thanks for the reply, Joe, but I'm still having trouble. I can pass an int to the method and get the same problem. I can remove the format from the text field and it works with either a String or an int. In other words, when I have this:

        antdField = new JFormattedTextField();

things work fine, although the displayed field looks bad. Perhaps there is some other way to control the appearance of the field. But I'd like to understand what is going on with the format and what is expected in terms of an argument to setValue().

[Joe Ess]

Originally posted by Jeff Allison:

I can remove the format from the text field and it works with either a String or an int.

You aren't removing the formatter. If you don't set it it will be determined from the type of argument you pass to setValue() (again, read the API doc above). If you pass a String first it probably just invokes toString() on the argument to subsequent setValue() calls.

I'd like to understand what is going on with the format and what is expected in terms of an argument to setValue().

I guess the question is: what do you expect the formatter to do? This code works fine for me:

  
NumberFormat antdFormat = NumberFormat.getIntegerInstance();
JFormattedTextField tf = new JFormattedTextField(antdFormat);
tf.setValue(new Integer(1234567));

Field appears as: 1,234,567

[Jeff Allison]

I'll RTFM and figure it out. Thanks.

[Joe Ess]

Take a look at the Java Tutorial article How To Use Formatted Text Fields for the bigger picture.