Number formats are also responsible for converting strings to binary numbers.
Number formats provide more flexible conversions than you can achieve with the methods in the type wrapper classes like Integer.parseInt().
For instance, a percent format parse() method can interpret 57% as 0.57 instead of 57.
A currency format can read (12.45) as -12.45.
Understand grouping
public Number parse(String text) throws ParseException
public abstract Number parse(String text, ParsePosition parsePosition)
public final Object parseObject(String source, ParsePosition parsePosition)