Inconvertible Types

Question

Whats an easy way to handle this?
I have 2 strings with a number in each that I need to multiply.
int product = string1 * string2;
That will give me a compile error. So I used type-casting.
int number1 = (int)string1;
int number2 = (int)string2;
int product = number1 * number2;
But this gives me a 'inconvertible type' compile error.
If I can't multiply strings, and I can't convert them to a datatype that can multiply, then how am I supposed to get this to work?

Answer 1

Don't use the above style. It is inefficient and bad
coding practice.
(i.e. it creates an unnecessary object)Doesn't your example use unnecessary int's?
int product = 0;
try {
  product = (Integer.parseInt(string1) * Integer.parseInt(string2));
} catch(NumberFormatException e) {
  System.out.println("string1 or string2 is not a number!");