changing value of a variable inside catch block

Question

Here's the code:

public static String removeDateFromString(String txt) {
    String dateRemovedString = new String();
    String[] str = txt.split("-");

    for(int i=0; i<str.length; i++) {

        SimpleDateFormat format = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM");
        try {
            format.parse(str[i]);
        } catch(ParseException e) {
            dateRemovedString.concat(str[i]);
        }
    }
    return dateRemovedString;
}

For,

input text: Cricket Match - 01 Jul

output text: "" (empty String)

But I want, output: Cricket Match

What should I do?

Answer 1

String is immutable :

Note: The String class is immutable, so that once it is created a String object cannot be changed. The String class has a number of methods, some of which will be discussed below, that appear to modify strings. Since strings are immutable, what these methods really do is create and return a new string that contains the result of the operation.

dateRemovedString = dateRemovedString.concat(str[i]);

---

StringBuilder is mutable. StringBuilder is used to build a String. Use StringBuilder instead in this case. Example usage:

StringBuilder dateRemovedString = new StringBuilder();
dateRemovedString.append(str[i]);
return dateRemovedString.toString();

Answer 2

If you are sure about the input text format, then don't bother to hit the exception.

Simply extract the part you are interested using split or RegExp and then process it