Quick and dirty solution is to step through the string, one char at a time, until you reach a character which is not 0. this might happen on the first char or the third, whatever. Anyways, then use that index to do a substring, then pass that substring into Integer.parseInt This can be done in one line, essentially. Take care, Sina ________________________________ From: program-java-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:program-java-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Corbett, James Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:06 AM To: program-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; program-java@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [program-java] String to int... Sorry for the cross posting?. I have a COBOL copybook that defines an element as Pic 9(5)? In my Java class I need to pass into my setter an integer for obvious reasons. COBOL under the hood needs me to pass 00000 if the field is empty because I'm actually building the com area at this point. If however the field contains 999 I must still pass 00999 to fulfil the expected length?. Ok, I have a string "00999" and need to convert it to an integer?. If I do so, then the leading zeros are stripped off and my com area is 2 bytes short?. Don't ask why or how it's the way it is?. So, how do I manage this? Jim James M. Corbett Programmer / Analyst GST/HST Micros | Micros de la TPS/TVH Business Suite Assessing Systems (BSAS) Revenue and Accounting Systems Directorate (RASD) | Direction des Systèmes de revenu et de comptabilité (DSRC) Information Technology Branch (ITB) | Direction générale de l'informatique (DGI) Canada Revenue Agency | Agence du revenue du Canada (613) 941-1338 "...Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool Opotamus?"