title: how to convert a string to float and avoid using try/catch in java?
body: <p>There are some situation that I need to convert string to float or some other numerical data-type but there is a probability of getting some nonconvertible values such as "-" or "/"  and I can't verify all the values beforehand to remove them.
  and I  want to avoid using try/catch for this matter , is there any other way of doing a proper conversion in java? something similar to C# <code>TryParse</code>?</p>