reading properties file

[Jeffrey Pony]

Iam currently using jdk1.4.
I have a to read a properties file containing text,

key = value
spaced key = spaced value


Can I set the delimiter that is to be used by Properties, in this case I would want only '=' as the delimiter and ignore whilte space between the keys.

Is there any way that I can acheive this in my code while creating the Properties object or invoking the load method?

Thanks in advance.

[Filip Pas]

I don't think so. Write you're own if you really need this option.

[Glen Kidston]

Try escaping the space in the property value with a "\".
Here's an example:

"Blah.properties" follows:

foo=bar
my\ blah=Bling

Note the backslash in property key "my blah". We can test as follows:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
 
public class PropTest  {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception  {
        Properties p = new Properties();
        p.load( new BufferedInputStream(
            new FileInputStream("Blah.properties") )  );
        for (Enumeration e = p.keys(); e.hasMoreElements()  :wink:  {
            String key = (String) e.nextElement();
            System.out.println(key + ": " + p.get(key));
        }
    }
}

Running this results in the following output:

my blah: Bling
foo: bar

Ta Dah! Um though, I didn't try going the other way, list()ing it to a file or serializing it to an ObjectOutputStream, but I'm guessing it might work... Good Luck!
-Glen

[Glen Kidston]

Just tried spicing up the Properties key with an embedded "\"" and list()ing to a file:

New Blah.properties:

foo=bar
my\ \"blah=Bling

New PropTest.java:

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
 
public class PropTest  {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception  {
        Properties p = new Properties();
        p.load( new BufferedInputStream(
            new FileInputStream("Blah.properties") )  );
        for (Enumeration e = p.keys(); e.hasMoreElements()  :wink:  {
            String key = (String) e.nextElement();
            System.out.println(key + ": " + p.get(key));
        }
        System.out.println("Now save it to a file:");
        PrintStream ps =
            new PrintStream(
            new BufferedOutputStream(
            new FileOutputStream("Sproing.properties") )  );
        p.list( ps );
        ps.flush();
        ps.close();
    }
}

Which results in:

my "blah: Bling
foo: bar
Now save it to a file:

All of this really makes sense as, to quote from the java.util.Properties docs:

Each key and its corresponding value in the property list is a string.