I wrote the code snip below to do some extra checking on string to
double conversion.  I did not expect the need to call toUpperCase.
What was I not anticipating?  It just didn't seem logical to me,
given the number of tools out there that create their floating point
numbers with a lower case "e".

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    private java.util.Locale myLocale =
      java.util.Locale.getDefault( );

    private java.text.NumberFormat DFormat =
      java.text.NumberFormat.getInstance( myLocale );
    private java.text.ParsePosition DPosition =
      new java.text.ParsePosition( 0 );

    public double DparseDouble( String S ) throws NumberFormatException
        {
        // Trim it and check for a blank string.
        // Upper case is needed to match the "E" in scientific notation.

        String T = S.trim( ).toUpperCase( );
        if( T.length( ) == 0 )
            {
            throw new NumberFormatException( );
            }

        // Otherwise, try to parse it.

        DPosition.setIndex( 0 );
        Number parsedNumber = DFormat.parse( T, DPosition );

        // Failure will occur if none or only a part of the string
        // is properly parsed.

        if( DPosition.getIndex( ) < T.length( ) )
            {
            throw new NumberFormatException( );
            }

        return parsedNumber.doubleValue( );
        }