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What is the Best way to get the values from the Properties File in Spring?

I have used the following ways to get the values from the properties. But I would like to know which one of these is the best to use to follow the coding standard? Also, are there any other ways that we can get the values from the properties file in Spring?
PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer
getEnvironment() from the Spring's Application Context
Spring EL #Value

Along with the other configuration classes (ApplicationConfiguration etc.) I create a class with the annotation #Service and here I have the following fields to access the properties in my file:
#Service
public class Properties (){
#Value("${com.something.user.property}")
private String property;
public String getProperty (){ return this.property; }
}
Then I can autowire the class and get the properties from my properties file

The answer is,
it depends.
If the properties are configuration values,
then configure a propertyConfigurer
(below is an example for a Spring xml configuration file).
<bean id="propertyConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.context.support.PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="ignoreResourceNotFound" value="true" />
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:configuration.properties</value>
<value>classpath:configuration.overrides.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
When configured this way,
the properties from the last file found override those found earler
(in the locations list).
This allows you to ship the standard configuration.properties file bundled in the war file and store a configuration.overrides.properties at each installation location to account for installation system differences.
Once you have a propertyConfigurer,
annotate your classes using the #Value annotation.
Here is an example:
#Value("${some.configuration.value}")
private String someConfigurationValue;
It is not required to cluster the configuration values into one class,
but doing so makes it easier to find where the values are used.

#Value will be the simple and easy way to use, as it will inject value from property file to your field.
Both the older PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer and the new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer added in Spring 3.1 resolve ${…} placeholders within bean definition property values and #Value annotations.
unlike getEnvironment
using property-placeholder will not expose the properties to the
Spring Environment – this means that retrieving the value like this
will not work – it will return null
when you are using <context:property-placeholder location="classpath:foo.properties" /> and you use env.getProperty(key); it will always return null.
see this post for the problem using getEnvironment : Expose <property-placeholder> properties to the Spring Environment
Moreover, in Spring Boot you can use #ConfigurationProperties to define your own properties with hierarchical and type-safe in application.properties. and you don't need to put #Value for every field.
#ConfigurationProperties(prefix = "database")
public class Database {
String url;
String username;
String password;
// standard getters and setters
}
in application.properties:
database.url=jdbc:postgresql:/localhost:5432/instance
database.username=foo
database.password=bar
Quote from : properties with spring

Spring reference a property from a property bean

I have created a spring configuration file that works well.
My next step was to separate user configuration properties from system properties.
I have decided to create additional xml file with beans that will be configured by the user.
I had problem to create few such logical beans encapsulating properties that will be used by real class beans:
I have found over the net an option to reference proprieties in such way:
UserConf.xml
<bean id="numberGuess" class="x...">
<property name="randomNumber" value="5"/>
<!-- other properties -->
</bean>
SystemConf.xml
<import resource="UserConf.xml" />
<bean id="shapeGuess" class="y...">
<property name="initialShapeSeed" value="#{ numberGuess.randomNumber }"/>
<!-- other properties -->
</bean>
But my problem is that i need x... class to be something logical that shouldn't be initialized at all, and i don't want it to disclose any info of the class hierarchy of the system since it should be only in use configuration xml file.
Solution1 is to create a Java object representing this proprieties:
public class MyProps(...)
and add a bean parent in the spring system configuration:
<bean id="MyProps" class="path to MyProps"/>
in the user side change the previous bean to be:
<bean id="numberGuess" parent="MyProps">
<property name="randomNumber" value="5"/>
<!-- other properties -->
</bean>
Solution2 is to use flat configuration file just like Database.props, and load it using factory.
Solution3 is to use Spring Property Placeholder configuration to load properties from XML properties file (e.g. example), but here i simply don't know how to get a more complex nested structure of properties (properties need to be separated by different logical names, e.g. minNumber will be defined both under xAlgo and y algo).
I don't like to create new Java class only to deal with this problem or to move my user configuration to a flat props file (i need the xml structure), is their any other solution??

I will answer my own question, since it looks as the best solution for me (and much more simplistic than was suggested)
I will use PropertiesFactoryBean to do the work for me:
e.g.
UserConf.xml
<bean id="numberGuess" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
<property name="properties">
<props>
<prop key="randomNumber">3</prop>
<!-- other properties -->
</bean>
SystemConf.xml
<import resource="UserConf.xml" />
<bean id="shapeGuess" class="y...">
<property name="initialShapeSeed" value="#{ numberGuess.randomNumber }"/>
<!-- other properties -->
</bean>

First if you don't know about the property place holder you should take a look at that. Also #Value("${some.property:defaultvalue}") is something you should look at.
Second the word configuration is ambiguous in Spring. Spring uses this word but they mean developer configuration not user configuration. Despite what people say or think Spring is not a configuration engine.
I'm not sure what your trying to do but you should be aware that your configuration will not be adjusted at runtime which is frequently needed for something like "user" configuration. So most people write their own configuration layer.
Another thing you should take a look at is not using the XML configuration and instead use Java Configuration which will give you way more flexibility.

Determining properties available for Spring Beans?

In the Spring Framework, how do you determine what "properties" and other related values are available to be set in the context.xml file(s)? For example, I need to set the isolation level of a TransactionManager. Would that be:
<property name="isolation" value="SERIALIZABLE" />
<property name="isolation_level" value="Isolation.SERIALIZABLE" />
or some other values?

Each bean represents a class, which you can easily find by class="" attribute. Now you simply open JavaDoc or source code of that class and look for all setters (methods following setFooBar() naming convention). You strip set prefix and un-capitalize the first character, making it fooBar. These are your properties.
In your particular case you are probably talking about PlatformTransactionManager and various implementations it has.

Putting the properties into . properties file is a good way of handling.
First define a properties file in your project structure. It is better to put .properties file with the same directory as spring applicationContext.xml.
Your properties file may seem like this :
isolation = "SERIALIZABLE"
isolation_level = Isolation.SERIALIZABLE
You can access this properties file by defining a spring bean like :
<bean id="applicationProperties" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="location" value="classpath:YourProperties.properties"/>
</bean>
Finally you can access these properties inside Spring beans like :
<bean id="BeanName" class="YourClass">
<property name="PropertyName1" value="${isolation}"/>
<property name="PropertyName" value="${isolation_level}"/>
</bean>
There is another way to inject these values using annotations.

Inject an external property into Spring context

I have three apps in a Spring 2.5 managed project that share some code and differ in details.
Each application has a property (java.lang.String) which is used before the application context is built.
Building the app context takes some time and cannot happen first. As such, it's defined in each individual application. This property is duplicated in the context definition since it is also needed there. Can I get rid of that duplication?
Is it possible to inject that property into my application context?

Have a look at PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer.
The Spring documentation talks about it here.
<bean id="myPropertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="location" value="classpath:my-property-file.properties"/>
<property name="placeholderPrefix" value="$myPrefix{"/>
</bean>
<bean id="myClassWhichUsesTheProperties" class="com.class.Name">
<property name="propertyName" value="$myPrefix{my.property.from.the.file}"/>
</bean>
You then have reference to that String to anywhere you'd like in your application context, constructor-arg, property etc.

With spring 3.0 you have the #Value("${property}"). It uses the defined PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer beans.
In spring 2.5 you can again use the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer and then define a bean of type java.lang.String which you can then autowire:
<bean id="yourProperty" class="java.lang.String">
<constructor-arg value="${property}" />
</bean>
#Autowired
#Qualifier("yourProperty")
private String property;

If you don't want to deal with external properties,you could define some common bean
<bean id="parent" class="my.class.Name"/>
then initialize it somehow, and put into common spring xml file, lets say common.xml. After that, you can make this context as a parent for each or your apps - in your child context xml file:
<import resource="common.xml"/>
and then you can inject properties of your parent into the beans you're interested in:
<bean ...
<property name="myProperty" value="#{parent.commonProperty}"/>
...
</bean>

Import Spring config file based on property in .properties file

In my Spring xml configuration I'm trying to get something like this to work:
<beans>
<import resource="${file.to.import}" />
<!-- Other bean definitions -->
</beans>
I want to decide which file to import based on a property in a properties file.
I know that I can use a System property, but I can't add a property to the JVM at startup.
Note: The PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer will not work. Imports are resolved before any BeanFactoryPostProcessors are run. The import element can only resolve System.properties.
Does anyone have a simple solution to this? I don't want to start subclassing framework classes and so on...
Thanks

This is, unfortunately, a lot harder than it should be. In my application I accomplished this by doing the following:
A small, "bootstrap" context that is responsible for loading a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer bean and another bean that is responsible for bootstrapping the application context.
The 2nd bean mentioned above takes as input the "real" spring context files to load. I have my spring context files organized so that the configurable part is well known and in the same place. For example, I might have 3 config files: one.onpremise.xml, one.hosted.xml, one.multitenant.xml. The bean programmatically loads these context files into the current application context.
This works because the context files are specified as input the the bean responsible for loading them. It won't work if you just try to do an import, as you mentioned, but this has the same effect with slightly more work. The bootstrap class looks something like this:
public class Bootstrapper implements ApplicationContextAware, InitializingBean {
private WebApplicationContext context;
private String[] configLocations;
private String[] testConfigLocations;
private boolean loadTestConfigurations;
public void setConfigLocations(final String[] configLocations) {
this.configLocations = configLocations;
}
public void setTestConfigLocations(final String[] testConfigLocations) {
this.testConfigLocations = testConfigLocations;
}
public void setLoadTestConfigurations(final boolean loadTestConfigurations) {
this.loadTestConfigurations = loadTestConfigurations;
}
#Override
public void setApplicationContext(final ApplicationContext applicationContext) throws BeansException {
context = (WebApplicationContext) applicationContext;
}
#Override
public void afterPropertiesSet() throws Exception {
String[] configsToLoad = configLocations;
if (loadTestConfigurations) {
configsToLoad = new String[configLocations.length + testConfigLocations.length];
arraycopy(configLocations, 0, configsToLoad, 0, configLocations.length);
arraycopy(testConfigLocations, 0, configsToLoad, configLocations.length, testConfigLocations.length);
}
context.setConfigLocations(configsToLoad);
context.refresh();
}
}
Basically, get the application context, set its config locations, and tell it to refresh itself. This works perfectly in my application.
Hope this helps.

For the Spring 2.5 and 3.0, I have a similar solution to louis, however I've just read about 3.1's upcoming feature: property management, which sounds great too.

There is an old issue on the Spring JIRA for adding properties placeholder support for import (SPR-1358) that was resolved as "Won't Fix", but there has since been a proposed solution using an EagerPropertyPlaceholderConfigurer.
I've been lobbying to have SPR-1358 reopened, but no response so far. Perhaps if others added their use cases to the issue comments that would help raise awareness.

Why not:
read your properties file on startup
that will determine which Spring config to load
whichever Spring config is loaded sets specific stuff, then loads a common Spring config
so you're effectively inverting your current proposed solution.

Add something similar to the following:
<bean id="propertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="ignoreResourceNotFound"><value>true</value></property>
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:propertyfile.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>

If what you want is to specify the imported XML file name outside applicationContext.xml so that you could replace applicationContext.xml without losing the configuration of the imported XML file path, you can just add an intermediate Spring beans XML file, say, confSelector.xml, so that applicationContext.xml imports confSelector.xml and confSelector.xml only contains an <import> element that refers to the suitable custom beans XML file.
Another means that might be of use are XML entities (defined by adding <!ENTITY ... > elements into the DTD declaration at the beginning of XML). These allow importing XML fragments from other files and provide "property placeholder"-like functionality for any XML file.
Neither of these solutions allows you to have the configuration file in Java's .properties format, though.

André Schuster's answer, which I bumped, helped me solve a very similar issue I was having in wanting to find a different expression of properties depending on whether I was running on my own host, by Jenkins on our build host or in "real" deployment. I did this:
<context:property-placeholder location="file:///etc/myplace/database.properties" />
followed later by
<bean id="propertyConfigurer"
class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>WEB-INF/classes/resources/database.properties</value>
...
</list>
</property>
</bean>
which solved my problem because on my development host, I put a link to my own copy of database.properties in /etc/myplace/database.properties, and a slightly different one on the server running Jenkins. In real deployment, no such file is found, so Spring falls back on the "real" one in resources in my class files subdirectory. If the properties in question have already been specified by the file on /etc/myplace/database.properties, then (fortunately) they aren't redefined by the local file.

Another workaround which does not rely on system properties is to load the properties of all the files using a different PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer for each file and define a different placeholderPrefix for each of them.
That placeholderprefix being configured by the initial property file.
Define the first property file: (containing either first or second)
global.properties
fileToUse=first
Define the files containing a property that can be switched depending on the property defined just above:
first.properties
aProperty=propertyContentOfFirst
second.properties
aProperty=propertyContentOfSecond
Then define the place holders for all the files:
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:global.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="placeholderPrefix" value="first{" />
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:first.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
<property name="placeholderPrefix" value="second{" />
<property name="locations">
<list>
<value>classpath:second.properties</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
Use the property defined in global to identify the resource to use from the other file:
${fileToUse}{aProperty}

If I add the JVM argument below and have the file myApplicationContext.dev.xml, spring does load
-DmyEnvironment=dev
<context:property-placeholder />
<import resource="classpath:/resources/spring/myApplicationContext.${myEnvironment}.xml"/>

I'm using Spring 3 and load a properties like that:
<context:property-placeholder location="/WEB-INF/my.properties" />