[jdom-interest] DataConversionException javadoc and other issues

[Elliotte Rusty Harold]

The Javadoc for the DataConversionException constructor (see 
http://www.jdom.org/docs/apidocs/org/jdom/DataConversionException.html) 
is very misleading. It has nothing to do with missing attributes, and 
everything to do with a string not being able to be converted to a number.

I was just going to submit a patch, but then I began to wonder whther we 
still needed this exception class at all. It is only thrown, as near as 
I can see, by four methods in Attribute: getIntValue(), getFloatValue(), 
getDoubleValue(), getLongValue. If getIntValue() or getFloatValue(), 
etc. fail the natural response is a NumberFormatException. Would it be 
better to throw that and delete DataConversionException completely?

The big difference is that DataConversionException is checked and 
NumberFormatException is not. I think that this case  does satisfy the 
criterion for checked excepitons that, (following Bloch) " the 
exceptional condition cannot be prevented by proper use of the API /and/ 
the programmer using the API can take some useful action once confronted 
with the exception"

Thoughts?

-- 
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo at metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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