question: protected boolean strictParseBoolean ( String s ) { if ( s == null || s . isEmpty ( ) ) { throw new IllegalArgumentException ( "empty string does not represent a valid boolean" ) ; } if ( s . equalsIgnoreCase ( "true" ) ) { return true ; } if ( s . equalsIgnoreCase ( "false" ) ) { return false ; } throw new IllegalArgumentException ( "Invalid string representing a boolean: " + s ) ; }
target:  we need this strict function because Boolean.parseBoolean silently ignores malformed strings