Using a properties file in an object-oriented way

The PropertiesTree class allows you to use a properties file in an object-oriented way. It is inspired by Groovy/Grail's config objects but doesn't require Groovy.

For instance, this makes it easy to read a set of properties in a loop. Imagine you like configure a number of data sources and your config file contains this:

foo=bar
dataSources.database1.url=localhost:3306/main
dataSources.database1.username=admin
dataSources.database1.password=4711
dataSources.database2.url=remote:3306/secondary
dataSources.database2.username=remoteuser
dataSources.database2.password=12345
dataSources.database2.settings.autoCommit=false
dataSources.database2.settings.poolSize=5

You can use your config like this:

PropertiesTree config = ...;

for (PropertiesTree dataSourceConfig : dataSources.getChildNodes()) {
 String url = dataSourceConfig.getLeafValue("url");
 ...
}

PropertiesTree database2settings = config.getNode("dataSources.database2.settings");
System.out.println( database2settings.getLeaves().toString() );

The method getChildNodes() returns a list of child nodes and getLeafValue() or getLeaves() gives you the data of a node.

You can download the class here:
- PropertiesTree.java
- PropertiesTreeTest.java