I have to parse a String that can assume hex values or other non-hex values 0xff, 0x31 or A, PC, label, and so on. I use this code to divide the two cases: String input = readInput(); try { int hex = Integer.decode(input); // use hex ... } catch (NumberFormatException e) { // input is not a hex, continue parsing } Can this code be considered "ugly" or difficult to read? Are there other (maybe more elegant) solutions? EDIT : I want to clarify that (in my case) a wrong input doesn't exist: i just need to distinguish if it is a hex number, or not. And just for completeness, i'm making a simple assebler for DCPU-16.