The simple, stupid properties library for Java™
- 03/07/2017: Version 2.0.1 is out with a small fix of the JMX MBean name. See all details in the change log.
- 08/06/2017: Version 2.0.0 is out! See what's new here.
- 17/07/2016: Version 1.3.0 is out with new features and bug fixes. See all details in the change log.
Easy Props is a library to inject configuration properties in Java objects declaratively using annotations.
Let's see a quick example. Suppose you have an object of type Bean
which should be configured with:
- An Integer property
threshold
from a system property passed to the JVM with-Dthreshold=100
- A String property
bean.name
from a properties file namedmyProperties.properties
To load these properties in the Bean
object using Easy Props, you annotate fields as follows:
public class Bean {
@Property(source = "myProperties.properties", key = "bean.name")
private String beanName;
@SystemProperty(value = "threshold", defaultValue = "50")
private int threshold;
//getters and setters omitted
}
and instruct the library to inject these properties in the annotated fields:
//Instantiate your object
Bean bean = new Bean();
//Create a PropertiesInjector and inject properties in your object
aNewPropertiesInjector().injectProperties(bean);
That's it! Easy Props will:
- introspect the
Bean
instance looking for fields annotated with@Property
and@SystemProperty
- convert each property value to the target field's type
- and inject that value into the annotated field
You can also configure your object at construction time:
public class Bean {
@Property(source = "myProperties.properties", key = "bean.name")
private String beanName;
@SystemProperty(value = "threshold", defaultValue = "50")
private int threshold;
public Bean () {
aNewPropertiesInjector().injectProperties(this);
}
//getters and setters omitted
}
Now just create your object and it will be configured and ready to use.
Without Easy Props, you would write something like this:
public class Bean {
private int threshold;
private String beanName;
public Bean() {
//Load 'threshold' property from system properties
String thresholdProperty = System.getProperty("threshold");
if ( thresholdProperty != null ) {
try {
threshold = Integer.parseInt(thresholdProperty);
} catch (NumberFormatException e) {
// log exception
threshold = 50; //default threshold value;
}
}
//Load 'bean.name' property from properties file
Properties properties = new Properties();
try {
InputStream inputStream = this.getClass().getClassLoader()
.getResourceAsStream("myProperties.properties");
if (inputStream != null) {
properties.load(inputStream);
beanName = properties.getProperty("bean.name");
}
} catch (IOException ex) {
// log exception
beanName = "FOO"; // default bean name value
}
}
//getters and setters omitted
}
As you can see, a lot of boilerplate code is written to load just two properties, convert them to the target field type, etc. Easy Props takes care of all this boilerplate with a couple of intuitive annotations, which makes your code cleaner, more readable and maintainable.
In this quick example, you have seen two types of properties sources (system and resource bundle). Easy Props can inject properties from many other sources like databases, JNDI contexts, and more.
Even better, Easy Props allows you write your own annotations and inject properties from a custom configuration source.
Checkout the complete reference in the project's wiki.
Dependency injection frameworks allow you to inject properties in Java objects and they do it well.
But in order to benefit from this feature, your code should run inside a DI container, or at least, the object in which you are trying to inject properties must be managed by a DI container.
What if your code does not run inside a DI container? This is where Easy Props comes to play, to allow you to benefit from properties injection without requiring your code to run inside a DI container.
You are welcome to contribute to the project with pull requests on GitHub.
If you found a bug or want to request a feature, please use the issue tracker.
For any further question, you can use the Gitter channel of the project.
Easy Props is released under the terms of the MIT license:
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Mahmoud Ben Hassine ([email protected])
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.