In Java there is a Boolean object which has a nice static method called getBoolean that takes in a String. It returns a primitive boolean. So one would think that the following would print true.
…
String foo = “true”;
System.out.println( “Value [” + Boolean.getBoolean( foo ) + “]” ); …
But getBoolean() does not translate a String into a boolean primitive. It gets the boolean value of a SYSTEM PROPERTY.
From the Javadoc:
Returns true if and only if the system property named by the argument exists and is equal to the string “true”.
zeusville 
cool
it’s not cool – I’ve been burnt by that more times than I care to mention.
It should have been in java.lang.System, but they’ll never move it now.
What if what I think it does is what the javadoc says? Why would I think ‘oh, the Javadoc is wrong’? Unless I didn’t read it in the first place, I suppose.
public static Boolean valueOf(String s), anyone?
It follows the same naming pattern as String.valueOfs.