Double

public final class Double
extends Number implements Comparable<Double>

java.lang.Object
   ↳ java.lang.Number
     ↳ java.lang.Double


The Double class wraps a value of the primitive type double in an object. An object of type Double contains a single field whose type is double.

In addition, this class provides several methods for converting a double to a String and a String to a double, as well as other constants and methods useful when dealing with a double.

Floating-point Equality, Equivalence, and Comparison

IEEE 754 floating-point values include finite nonzero values, signed zeros (+0.0 and -0.0), signed infinities positive infinity and negative infinity), and NaN (not-a-number).

An equivalence relation on a set of values is a boolean relation on pairs of values that is reflexive, symmetric, and transitive. For more discussion of equivalence relations and object equality, see the Object.equals specification. An equivalence relation partitions the values it operates over into sets called equivalence classes. All the members of the equivalence class are equal to each other under the relation. An equivalence class may contain only a single member. At least for some purposes, all the members of an equivalence class are substitutable for each other. In particular, in a numeric expression equivalent values can be substituted for one another without changing the result of the expression, meaning changing the equivalence class of the result of the expression.

Notably, the built-in == operation on floating-point values is not an equivalence relation. Despite not defining an equivalence relation, the semantics of the IEEE 754 == operator were deliberately designed to meet other needs of numerical computation. There are two exceptions where the properties of an equivalence relation are not satisfied by == on floating-point values:

  • If v1 and v2 are both NaN, then v1 == v2 has the value false. Therefore, for two NaN arguments the reflexive property of an equivalence relation is not satisfied by the == operator.
  • If v1 represents +0.0 while v2 represents -0.0, or vice versa, then v1 == v2 has the value true even though +0.0 and -0.0 are distinguishable under various floating-point operations. For example, 1.0/+0.0 evaluates to positive infinity while 1.0/-0.0 evaluates to negative infinity and positive infinity and negative infinity are neither equal to each other nor equivalent to each other. Thus, while a signed zero input most commonly determines the sign of a zero result, because of dividing by zero, +0.0 and -0.0 may not be substituted for each other in general. The sign of a zero input also has a non-substitutable effect on the result of some math library methods.

For ordered comparisons using the built-in comparison operators (<, <=, etc.), NaN values have another anomalous situation: a NaN is neither less than, nor greater than, nor equal to any value, including itself. This means the trichotomy of comparison does not hold.

To provide the appropriate semantics for equals and compareTo methods, those methods cannot simply be wrappers around == or ordered comparison operations. Instead, equals defines NaN arguments to be equal to each other and defines +0.0 to not be equal to -0.0, restoring reflexivity. For comparisons, compareTo defines a total order where -0.0 is less than +0.0 and where a NaN is equal to itself and considered greater than positive infinity.

The operational semantics of equals and compareTo are expressed in terms of bit-wise converting the floating-point values to integral values.

The natural ordering implemented by compareTo is consistent with equals. That is, two objects are reported as equal by equals if and only if compareTo on those objects returns zero.

The adjusted behaviors defined for equals and compareTo allow instances of wrapper classes to work properly with conventional data structures. For example, defining NaN values to be equals to one another allows NaN to be used as an element of a HashSet or as the key of a HashMap. Similarly, defining compareTo as a total ordering, including +0.0, -0.0, and NaN, allows instances of wrapper classes to be used as elements of a SortedSet or as keys of a SortedMap.

Summary

Constants

int BYTES

The number of bytes used to represent a double value.

int MAX_EXPONENT

Maximum exponent a finite double variable may have.

double MAX_VALUE

A constant holding the largest positive finite value of type double, (2-2-52)·21023.

int MIN_EXPONENT

Minimum exponent a normalized double variable may have.

double MIN_NORMAL

A constant holding the smallest positive normal value of type double, 2-1022.

double MIN_VALUE

A constant holding the smallest positive nonzero value of type double, 2-1074.

double NEGATIVE_INFINITY

A constant holding the negative infinity of type double.

double NaN

A constant holding a Not-a-Number (NaN) value of type double.

double POSITIVE_INFINITY

A constant holding the positive infinity of type double.

int PRECISION

The number of bits in the significand of a double value.

int SIZE

The number of bits used to represent a double value.

Fields

public static final Class<Double> TYPE

The Class instance representing the primitive type double.

Public constructors

Double(double value)

This constructor is deprecated. It is rarely appropriate to use this constructor. The static factory valueOf(double) is generally a better choice, as it is likely to yield significantly better space and time performance.

Double(String s)

This constructor is deprecated. It is rarely appropriate to use this constructor. Use parseDouble(java.lang.String) to convert a string to a double primitive, or use valueOf(java.lang.String) to convert a string to a Double object.

Public methods

byte byteValue()

Returns the value of this Double as a byte after a narrowing primitive conversion.

static int compare(double d1, double d2)

Compares the two specified double values.

int compareTo(Double anotherDouble)

Compares two Double objects numerically.

static long doubleToLongBits(double value)

Returns a representation of the specified floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point "double format" bit layout.

static long doubleToRawLongBits(double value)

Returns a representation of the specified floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point "double format" bit layout, preserving Not-a-Number (NaN) values.

double doubleValue()

Returns the double value of this Double object.

boolean equals(Object obj)

Compares this object against the specified object.

float floatValue()

Returns the value of this Double as a float after a narrowing primitive conversion.

int hashCode()

Returns a hash code for this Double object.

static int hashCode(double value)

Returns a hash code for a double value; compatible with Double.hashCode().

int intValue()

Returns the value of this Double as an int after a narrowing primitive conversion.

static boolean isFinite(double d)

Returns true if the argument is a finite floating-point value; returns false otherwise (for NaN and infinity arguments).

boolean isInfinite()

Returns true if this Double value is infinitely large in magnitude, false otherwise.

static boolean isInfinite(double v)

Returns true if the specified number is infinitely large in magnitude, false otherwise.

static boolean isNaN(double v)

Returns true if the specified number is a Not-a-Number (NaN) value, false otherwise.

boolean isNaN()

Returns true if this Double value is a Not-a-Number (NaN), false otherwise.

static double longBitsToDouble(long bits)

Returns the double value corresponding to a given bit representation.

long longValue()

Returns the value of this Double as a long after a narrowing primitive conversion.

static double max(double a, double b)

Returns the greater of two double values as if by calling Math.max.

static double min(double a, double b)

Returns the smaller of two double values as if by calling Math.min.

static double parseDouble(String s)

Returns a new double initialized to the value represented by the specified String, as performed by the valueOf method of class Double.

short shortValue()

Returns the value of this Double as a short after a narrowing primitive conversion.

static double sum(double a, double b)

Adds two double values together as per the + operator.

static String toHexString(double d)

Returns a hexadecimal string representation of the double argument.

static String toString(double d)

Returns a string representation of the double argument.

String toString()

Returns a string representation of this Double object.

static Double valueOf(String s)

Returns a Double object holding the double value represented by the argument string s.

static Double valueOf(double d)

Returns a Double instance representing the specified double value.

Inherited methods

Constants

BYTES

Added in API level 24
public static final int BYTES

The number of bytes used to represent a double value.

Constant Value: 8 (0x00000008)

MAX_EXPONENT

Added in API level 9
public static final int MAX_EXPONENT

Maximum exponent a finite double variable may have. It is equal to the value returned by Math.getExponent(Double.MAX_VALUE).

Constant Value: 1023 (0x000003ff)

MAX_VALUE

Added in API level 1
public static final double MAX_VALUE

A constant holding the largest positive finite value of type double, (2-2-52)·21023. It is equal to the hexadecimal floating-point literal 0x1.fffffffffffffP+1023 and also equal to Double.longBitsToDouble(0x7fefffffffffffffL).

Constant Value: 1.7976931348623157E308

MIN_EXPONENT

Added in API level 9
public static final int MIN_EXPONENT

Minimum exponent a normalized double variable may have. It is equal to the value returned by Math.getExponent(Double.MIN_NORMAL).

Constant Value: -1022 (0xfffffc02)

MIN_NORMAL

Added in API level 9
public static final double MIN_NORMAL

A constant holding the smallest positive normal value of type double, 2-1022. It is equal to the hexadecimal floating-point literal 0x1.0p-1022 and also equal to Double.longBitsToDouble(0x0010000000000000L).

Constant Value: 2.2250738585072014E-308

MIN_VALUE

Added in API level 1
public static final double MIN_VALUE

A constant holding the smallest positive nonzero value of type double, 2-1074. It is equal to the hexadecimal floating-point literal 0x0.0000000000001P-1022 and also equal to Double.longBitsToDouble(0x1L).

Constant Value: 4.9E-324

NEGATIVE_INFINITY

Added in API level 1
public static final double NEGATIVE_INFINITY

A constant holding the negative infinity of type double. It is equal to the value returned by Double.longBitsToDouble(0xfff0000000000000L).

Constant Value: -Infinity

NaN

Added in API level 1
public static final double NaN

A constant holding a Not-a-Number (NaN) value of type double. It is equivalent to the value returned by Double.longBitsToDouble(0x7ff8000000000000L).

Constant Value: NaN

POSITIVE_INFINITY

Added in API level 1
public static final double POSITIVE_INFINITY

A constant holding the positive infinity of type double. It is equal to the value returned by Double.longBitsToDouble(0x7ff0000000000000L).

Constant Value: Infinity

PRECISION

Added in API level 35
public static final int PRECISION

The number of bits in the significand of a double value. This is the parameter N in section {@jls 4.2.3} of The Java Language Specification.

Constant Value: 53 (0x00000035)

SIZE

Added in API level 1
public static final int SIZE

The number of bits used to represent a double value.

Constant Value: 64 (0x00000040)

Fields

TYPE

Added in API level 1
public static final Class<Double> TYPE

The Class instance representing the primitive type double.

Public constructors

Double

Added in API level 1
public Double (double value)

This constructor is deprecated.
It is rarely appropriate to use this constructor. The static factory valueOf(double) is generally a better choice, as it is likely to yield significantly better space and time performance.

Constructs a newly allocated Double object that represents the primitive double argument.

Parameters
value double: the value to be represented by the Double.

Double

Added in API level 1
public Double (String s)

This constructor is deprecated.
It is rarely appropriate to use this constructor. Use parseDouble(java.lang.String) to convert a string to a double primitive, or use valueOf(java.lang.String) to convert a string to a Double object.

Constructs a newly allocated Double object that represents the floating-point value of type double represented by the string. The string is converted to a double value as if by the valueOf method.

Parameters
s String: a string to be converted to a Double.

Throws
NumberFormatException if the string does not contain a parsable number.

Public methods

byteValue

Added in API level 1
public byte byteValue ()

Returns the value of this Double as a byte after a narrowing primitive conversion.

Returns
byte the double value represented by this object converted to type byte

compare

Added in API level 1
public static int compare (double d1, 
                double d2)

Compares the two specified double values. The sign of the integer value returned is the same as that of the integer that would be returned by the call:

    new Double(d1).compareTo(new Double(d2))
 

Parameters
d1 double: the first double to compare

d2 double: the second double to compare

Returns
int the value 0 if d1 is numerically equal to d2; a value less than 0 if d1 is numerically less than d2; and a value greater than 0 if d1 is numerically greater than d2.

compareTo

Added in API level 1
public int compareTo (Double anotherDouble)

Compares two Double objects numerically. This method imposes a total order on Double objects with two differences compared to the incomplete order defined by the Java language numerical comparison operators (<, <=, ==, >=, >) on double values.

  • A NaN is unordered with respect to other values and unequal to itself under the comparison operators. This method chooses to define Double.NaN to be equal to itself and greater than all other double values (including Double.POSITIVE_INFINITY).
  • Positive zero and negative zero compare equal numerically, but are distinct and distinguishable values. This method chooses to define positive zero (+0.0d), to be greater than negative zero (-0.0d).
This ensures that the natural ordering of Double objects imposed by this method is consistent with equals; see this discussion for details of floating-point comparison and ordering.

Parameters
anotherDouble Double: the Double to be compared.

Returns
int the value 0 if anotherDouble is numerically equal to this Double; a value less than 0 if this Double is numerically less than anotherDouble; and a value greater than 0 if this Double is numerically greater than anotherDouble.

doubleToLongBits

Added in API level 1
public static long doubleToLongBits (double value)

Returns a representation of the specified floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point "double format" bit layout.

Bit 63 (the bit that is selected by the mask 0x8000000000000000L) represents the sign of the floating-point number. Bits 62-52 (the bits that are selected by the mask 0x7ff0000000000000L) represent the exponent. Bits 51-0 (the bits that are selected by the mask 0x000fffffffffffffL) represent the significand (sometimes called the mantissa) of the floating-point number.

If the argument is positive infinity, the result is 0x7ff0000000000000L.

If the argument is negative infinity, the result is 0xfff0000000000000L.

If the argument is NaN, the result is 0x7ff8000000000000L.

In all cases, the result is a long integer that, when given to the longBitsToDouble(long) method, will produce a floating-point value the same as the argument to doubleToLongBits (except all NaN values are collapsed to a single "canonical" NaN value).

Parameters
value double: a double precision floating-point number.

Returns
long the bits that represent the floating-point number.

doubleToRawLongBits

Added in API level 1
public static long doubleToRawLongBits (double value)

Returns a representation of the specified floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point "double format" bit layout, preserving Not-a-Number (NaN) values.

Bit 63 (the bit that is selected by the mask 0x8000000000000000L) represents the sign of the floating-point number. Bits 62-52 (the bits that are selected by the mask 0x7ff0000000000000L) represent the exponent. Bits 51-0 (the bits that are selected by the mask 0x000fffffffffffffL) represent the significand (sometimes called the mantissa) of the floating-point number.

If the argument is positive infinity, the result is 0x7ff0000000000000L.

If the argument is negative infinity, the result is 0xfff0000000000000L.

If the argument is NaN, the result is the long integer representing the actual NaN value. Unlike the doubleToLongBits method, doubleToRawLongBits does not collapse all the bit patterns encoding a NaN to a single "canonical" NaN value.

In all cases, the result is a long integer that, when given to the longBitsToDouble(long) method, will produce a floating-point value the same as the argument to doubleToRawLongBits.

Parameters
value double: a double precision floating-point number.

Returns
long the bits that represent the floating-point number.

doubleValue

Added in API level 1
public double doubleValue ()

Returns the double value of this Double object.

Returns
double the double value represented by this object

equals

Added in API level 1
public boolean equals (Object obj)

Compares this object against the specified object. The result is true if and only if the argument is not null and is a Double object that represents a double that has the same value as the double represented by this object. For this purpose, two double values are considered to be the same if and only if the method doubleToLongBits(double) returns the identical long value when applied to each.

API Note:
  • This method is defined in terms of doubleToLongBits(double) rather than the == operator on double values since the == operator does not define an equivalence relation and to satisfy the equals contract an equivalence relation must be implemented; see this discussion for details of floating-point equality and equivalence.
Parameters
obj Object: the reference object with which to compare.

Returns
boolean true if this object is the same as the obj argument; false otherwise.

floatValue

Added in API level 1
public float floatValue ()

Returns the value of this Double as a float after a narrowing primitive conversion.

Returns
float the double value represented by this object converted to type float

hashCode

Added in API level 1
public int hashCode ()

Returns a hash code for this Double object. The result is the exclusive OR of the two halves of the long integer bit representation, exactly as produced by the method doubleToLongBits(double), of the primitive double value represented by this Double object. That is, the hash code is the value of the expression:

(int)(v^(v>>>32))
where v is defined by:
long v = Double.doubleToLongBits(this.doubleValue());

Returns
int a hash code value for this object.

hashCode

Added in API level 24
public static int hashCode (double value)

Returns a hash code for a double value; compatible with Double.hashCode().

Parameters
value double: the value to hash

Returns
int a hash code value for a double value.

intValue

Added in API level 1
public int intValue ()

Returns the value of this Double as an int after a narrowing primitive conversion.

Returns
int the double value represented by this object converted to type int

isFinite

Added in API level 24
public static boolean isFinite (double d)

Returns true if the argument is a finite floating-point value; returns false otherwise (for NaN and infinity arguments).

Parameters
d double: the double value to be tested

Returns
boolean true if the argument is a finite floating-point value, false otherwise.

isInfinite

Added in API level 1
public boolean isInfinite ()

Returns true if this Double value is infinitely large in magnitude, false otherwise.

Returns
boolean true if the value represented by this object is positive infinity or negative infinity; false otherwise.

isInfinite

Added in API level 1
public static boolean isInfinite (double v)

Returns true if the specified number is infinitely large in magnitude, false otherwise.

Parameters
v double: the value to be tested.

Returns
boolean true if the value of the argument is positive infinity or negative infinity; false otherwise.

isNaN

Added in API level 1
public static boolean isNaN (double v)

Returns true if the specified number is a Not-a-Number (NaN) value, false otherwise.

Parameters
v double: the value to be tested.

Returns
boolean true if the value of the argument is NaN; false otherwise.

isNaN

Added in API level 1
public boolean isNaN ()

Returns true if this Double value is a Not-a-Number (NaN), false otherwise.

Returns
boolean true if the value represented by this object is NaN; false otherwise.

longBitsToDouble

Added in API level 1
public static double longBitsToDouble (long bits)

Returns the double value corresponding to a given bit representation. The argument is considered to be a representation of a floating-point value according to the IEEE 754 floating-point "double format" bit layout.

If the argument is 0x7ff0000000000000L, the result is positive infinity.

If the argument is 0xfff0000000000000L, the result is negative infinity.

If the argument is any value in the range 0x7ff0000000000001L through 0x7fffffffffffffffL or in the range 0xfff0000000000001L through 0xffffffffffffffffL, the result is a NaN. No IEEE 754 floating-point operation provided by Java can distinguish between two NaN values of the same type with different bit patterns. Distinct values of NaN are only distinguishable by use of the Double.doubleToRawLongBits method.

In all other cases, let s, e, and m be three values that can be computed from the argument:

int s = ((bits >> 63) == 0) ? 1 : -1;
 int e = (int)((bits >> 52) & 0x7ffL);
 long m = (e == 0) ?
                 (bits & 0xfffffffffffffL) << 1 :
                 (bits & 0xfffffffffffffL) | 0x10000000000000L;
 
Then the floating-point result equals the value of the mathematical expression s·m·2e-1075.

Note that this method may not be able to return a double NaN with exactly same bit pattern as the long argument. IEEE 754 distinguishes between two kinds of NaNs, quiet NaNs and signaling NaNs. The differences between the two kinds of NaN are generally not visible in Java. Arithmetic operations on signaling NaNs turn them into quiet NaNs with a different, but often similar, bit pattern. However, on some processors merely copying a signaling NaN also performs that conversion. In particular, copying a signaling NaN to return it to the calling method may perform this conversion. So longBitsToDouble may not be able to return a double with a signaling NaN bit pattern. Consequently, for some long values, doubleToRawLongBits(longBitsToDouble(start)) may not equal start. Moreover, which particular bit patterns represent signaling NaNs is platform dependent; although all NaN bit patterns, quiet or signaling, must be in the NaN range identified above.

Parameters
bits long: any long integer.

Returns
double the double floating-point value with the same bit pattern.

longValue

Added in API level 1
public long longValue ()

Returns the value of this Double as a long after a narrowing primitive conversion.

Returns
long the double value represented by this object converted to type long

max

Added in API level 24
public static double max (double a, 
                double b)

Returns the greater of two double values as if by calling Math.max.

Parameters
a double: the first operand

b double: the second operand

Returns
double the greater of a and b

See also:

min

Added in API level 24
public static double min (double a, 
                double b)

Returns the smaller of two double values as if by calling Math.min.

Parameters
a double: the first operand

b double: the second operand

Returns
double the smaller of a and b.

See also:

parseDouble

Added in API level 1
public static double parseDouble (String s)

Returns a new double initialized to the value represented by the specified String, as performed by the valueOf method of class Double.

Parameters
s String: the string to be parsed.

Returns
double the double value represented by the string argument.

Throws
NullPointerException if the string is null
NumberFormatException if the string does not contain a parsable double.

See also:

shortValue

Added in API level 1
public short shortValue ()

Returns the value of this Double as a short after a narrowing primitive conversion.

Returns
short the double value represented by this object converted to type short

sum

Added in API level 24
public static double sum (double a, 
                double b)

Adds two double values together as per the + operator.

Parameters
a double: the first operand

b double: the second operand

Returns
double the sum of a and b

See also:

toHexString

Added in API level 1
public static String toHexString (double d)

Returns a hexadecimal string representation of the double argument. All characters mentioned below are ASCII characters.

  • If the argument is NaN, the result is the string "NaN".
  • Otherwise, the result is a string that represents the sign and magnitude of the argument. If the sign is negative, the first character of the result is '-' ('\u002D'); if the sign is positive, no sign character appears in the result. As for the magnitude m:
    • If m is infinity, it is represented by the string "Infinity"; thus, positive infinity produces the result "Infinity" and negative infinity produces the result "-Infinity".
    • If m is zero, it is represented by the string "0x0.0p0"; thus, negative zero produces the result "-0x0.0p0" and positive zero produces the result "0x0.0p0".
    • If m is a double value with a normalized representation, substrings are used to represent the significand and exponent fields. The significand is represented by the characters "0x1." followed by a lowercase hexadecimal representation of the rest of the significand as a fraction. Trailing zeros in the hexadecimal representation are removed unless all the digits are zero, in which case a single zero is used. Next, the exponent is represented by "p" followed by a decimal string of the unbiased exponent as if produced by a call to Integer.toString on the exponent value.
    • If m is a double value with a subnormal representation, the significand is represented by the characters "0x0." followed by a hexadecimal representation of the rest of the significand as a fraction. Trailing zeros in the hexadecimal representation are removed. Next, the exponent is represented by "p-1022". Note that there must be at least one nonzero digit in a subnormal significand.
Examples
Floating-point ValueHexadecimal String
1.0 0x1.0p0
-1.0 -0x1.0p0
2.0 0x1.0p1
3.0 0x1.8p1
0.5 0x1.0p-1
0.25 0x1.0p-2
Double.MAX_VALUE 0x1.fffffffffffffp1023
Minimum Normal Value 0x1.0p-1022
Maximum Subnormal Value 0x0.fffffffffffffp-1022
Double.MIN_VALUE 0x0.0000000000001p-1022

Parameters
d double: the double to be converted.

Returns
String a hex string representation of the argument.

toString

Added in API level 1
public static String toString (double d)

Returns a string representation of the double argument. All characters mentioned below are ASCII characters.

  • If the argument is NaN, the result is the string "NaN".
  • Otherwise, the result is a string that represents the sign and magnitude (absolute value) of the argument. If the sign is negative, the first character of the result is '-' ('\u002D'); if the sign is positive, no sign character appears in the result. As for the magnitude m:
    • If m is infinity, it is represented by the characters "Infinity"; thus, positive infinity produces the result "Infinity" and negative infinity produces the result "-Infinity".
    • If m is zero, it is represented by the characters "0.0"; thus, negative zero produces the result "-0.0" and positive zero produces the result "0.0".
    • If m is greater than or equal to 10-3 but less than 107, then it is represented as the integer part of m, in decimal form with no leading zeroes, followed by '.' ('\u002E'), followed by one or more decimal digits representing the fractional part of m.
    • If m is less than 10-3 or greater than or equal to 107, then it is represented in so-called "computerized scientific notation." Let n be the unique integer such that 10nm < 10n+1; then let a be the mathematically exact quotient of m and 10n so that 1 ≤ a < 10. The magnitude is then represented as the integer part of a, as a single decimal digit, followed by '.' ('\u002E'), followed by decimal digits representing the fractional part of a, followed by the letter 'E' ('\u0045'), followed by a representation of n as a decimal integer, as produced by the method Integer#toString(int).
How many digits must be printed for the fractional part of m or a? There must be at least one digit to represent the fractional part, and beyond that as many, but only as many, more digits as are needed to uniquely distinguish the argument value from adjacent values of type double. That is, suppose that x is the exact mathematical value represented by the decimal representation produced by this method for a finite nonzero argument d. Then d must be the double value nearest to x; or if two double values are equally close to x, then d must be one of them and the least significant bit of the significand of d must be 0.

To create localized string representations of a floating-point value, use subclasses of NumberFormat.

Parameters
d double: the double to be converted.

Returns
String a string representation of the argument.

toString

Added in API level 1
public String toString ()

Returns a string representation of this Double object. The primitive double value represented by this object is converted to a string exactly as if by the method toString of one argument.

Returns
String a String representation of this object.

See also:

valueOf

Added in API level 1
public static Double valueOf (String s)

Returns a Double object holding the double value represented by the argument string s.

If s is null, then a NullPointerException is thrown.

Leading and trailing whitespace characters in s are ignored. Whitespace is removed as if by the String.trim() method; that is, both ASCII space and control characters are removed. The rest of s should constitute a FloatValue as described by the lexical syntax rules:

FloatValue:
Signopt NaN
Signopt Infinity
Signopt FloatingPointLiteral
Signopt HexFloatingPointLiteral
SignedInteger
HexFloatingPointLiteral:
HexSignificand BinaryExponent FloatTypeSuffixopt
HexSignificand:
HexNumeral
HexNumeral .
0x HexDigitsopt . HexDigits
0X HexDigitsopt . HexDigits
BinaryExponent:
BinaryExponentIndicator SignedInteger
BinaryExponentIndicator:
p
P
where Sign, FloatingPointLiteral, HexNumeral, HexDigits, SignedInteger and FloatTypeSuffix are as defined in the lexical structure sections of The Java Language Specification, except that underscores are not accepted between digits. If s does not have the form of a FloatValue, then a NumberFormatException is thrown. Otherwise, s is regarded as representing an exact decimal value in the usual "computerized scientific notation" or as an exact hexadecimal value; this exact numerical value is then conceptually converted to an "infinitely precise" binary value that is then rounded to type double by the usual round-to-nearest rule of IEEE 754 floating-point arithmetic, which includes preserving the sign of a zero value. Note that the round-to-nearest rule also implies overflow and underflow behaviour; if the exact value of s is large enough in magnitude (greater than or equal to (MAX_VALUE + ulp(MAX_VALUE)/2), rounding to double will result in an infinity and if the exact value of s is small enough in magnitude (less than or equal to MIN_VALUE/2), rounding to float will result in a zero. Finally, after rounding a Double object representing this double value is returned.

To interpret localized string representations of a floating-point value, use subclasses of NumberFormat.

Note that trailing format specifiers, specifiers that determine the type of a floating-point literal (1.0f is a float value; 1.0d is a double value), do not influence the results of this method. In other words, the numerical value of the input string is converted directly to the target floating-point type. The two-step sequence of conversions, string to float followed by float to double, is not equivalent to converting a string directly to double. For example, the float literal 0.1f is equal to the double value 0.10000000149011612; the float literal 0.1f represents a different numerical value than the double literal 0.1. (The numerical value 0.1 cannot be exactly represented in a binary floating-point number.)

To avoid calling this method on an invalid string and having a NumberFormatException be thrown, the regular expression below can be used to screen the input string:

final String Digits     = "(\\p{Digit}+)";
  final String HexDigits  = "(\\p{XDigit}+)";
  // an exponent is 'e' or 'E' followed by an optionally
  // signed decimal integer.
  final String Exp        = "[eE][+-]?"+Digits;
  final String fpRegex    =
      ("[\\x00-\\x20]*"+  // Optional leading "whitespace"
       "[+-]?(" + // Optional sign character
       "NaN|" +           // "NaN" string
       "Infinity|" +      // "Infinity" string

       // A decimal floating-point string representing a finite positive
       // number without a leading sign has at most five basic pieces:
       // Digits . Digits ExponentPart FloatTypeSuffix
       //
       // Since this method allows integer-only strings as input
       // in addition to strings of floating-point literals, the
       // two sub-patterns below are simplifications of the grammar
       // productions from section 3.10.2 of
       // The Java Language Specification.

       // Digits ._opt Digits_opt ExponentPart_opt FloatTypeSuffix_opt
       "((("+Digits+"(\\.)?("+Digits+"?)("+Exp+")?)|"+

       // . Digits ExponentPart_opt FloatTypeSuffix_opt
       "(\\.("+Digits+")("+Exp+")?)|"+

       // Hexadecimal strings
       "((" +
        // 0[xX] HexDigits ._opt BinaryExponent FloatTypeSuffix_opt
        "(0[xX]" + HexDigits + "(\\.)?)|" +

        // 0[xX] HexDigits_opt . HexDigits BinaryExponent FloatTypeSuffix_opt
        "(0[xX]" + HexDigits + "?(\\.)" + HexDigits + ")" +

        ")[pP][+-]?" + Digits + "))" +
       "[fFdD]?))" +
       "[\\x00-\\x20]*");// Optional trailing "whitespace"

  if (Pattern.matches(fpRegex, myString))
      Double.valueOf(myString); // Will not throw NumberFormatException
  else {
      // Perform suitable alternative action
  }
 

Parameters
s String: the string to be parsed.

Returns
Double a Double object holding the value represented by the String argument.

Throws
NumberFormatException if the string does not contain a parsable number.

valueOf

Added in API level 1
public static Double valueOf (double d)

Returns a Double instance representing the specified double value. If a new Double instance is not required, this method should generally be used in preference to the constructor Double(double), as this method is likely to yield significantly better space and time performance by caching frequently requested values.

Parameters
d double: a double value.

Returns
Double a Double instance representing d.