using ResourceBundle and getStringArray

[Jason Novotny]

Hello,

I've been successfully using the ResourceBundle class to mimic the
functionality of a Properties() file, except that I don't need to
specify whre my properties file is, as long as it's in the classpath.

Basically I have a file called foo.properties with the following, say:

foobar=banana

Then I can do:

ResourceBundle configBundle = ResourceBundle.getBundle("foo.foo");

String foobar = configBundle.getString("foobar");

and all is well. However, I want to add multiple values for the same
key, and I'm not sure what the appropiate syntax is:

foobar=banana
foobar=apple
.....

and I want to do something like

String[] foobar = configBundle.getStringArray("foobar")

but this doesn't seem to work- I've tried to find ny info on using the
getStringArray() method on the web without any luck.

Any information on this is greatly appreciated

Thanks, Jason

--
Jason Novotny nov...@nlanr.net
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[Dirk Bosmans]

I'm reacting to following parts of Jason Novotny <nov...@nlanr.net>'s article
in comp.lang.java.programmer on Thu, 19 Oct 2000 16:37:13 GMT6

>
> Hello,
>
> I've been successfully using the ResourceBundle class to mimic the
> functionality of a Properties() file, except that I don't need to
> specify whre my properties file is, as long as it's in the classpath.
>
> Basically I have a file called foo.properties with the following, say:
>
> foobar=banana
>
> Then I can do:
>
> ResourceBundle configBundle = ResourceBundle.getBundle("foo.foo");
>
> String foobar = configBundle.getString("foobar");
>
> and all is well. However, I want to add multiple values for the same
> key, and I'm not sure what the appropiate syntax is:
>
> foobar=banana
> foobar=apple
> .....
>
> and I want to do something like
>
> String[] foobar = configBundle.getStringArray("foobar")
>
> but this doesn't seem to work- I've tried to find ny info on using the
> getStringArray() method on the web without any luck.
>
> Any information on this is greatly appreciated
>
> Thanks, Jason

1. As PropertyResourceBundle uses a Properties object, which in turn is a
subclass of Hashtable, adding foobar=apple after foobar=banana will replace the
value banana for the key foobar by the value apple.
2. A ResourceBundle maps String keys to Object values. The getStringArray(String
key) method is just shorthand for <CODE>return (String[])getObject(key);</CODE>
3. PropertyResourceBundle is a subclass for ResourceBundle that handles only
String-type values, so the cast to String[] in getStringArray will throw a
ClassCastException (which may be handled in the method itself).
4. A ListResourceBundle may be subclassed to return any Object type, including a
String[]
5. In my Applicet Framework I realized this missing feature of Properties files,
and wrote a simple method getStringArray(String array, char delimiter) using a
simple loop over a StringTokenizer. I also handle many cases making
internationalization very easy.

Greetings,
Dirk Bosmans

http://users.belgacombusiness.net/arci/
- Applicet Framework: turns Applets into Applications
- ArciMath BigDecimal: now with BigDecimalFormat

[David M. Karr]

>>>>> "Dirk" == Dirk Bosmans <Dirk.B...@tijd.com> writes:
Dirk> 5. In my Applicet Framework I realized this missing feature of Properties files,
Dirk> and wrote a simple method getStringArray(String array, char delimiter) using a
Dirk> simple loop over a StringTokenizer. I also handle many cases making
Dirk> internationalization very easy.

I implemented something very similar in my own framework. I assume
the delimiter is "|", but that would be easy to softcode. The other
little annoyance is dealing with "abc||def". Logically, this should
represent a three-element array, with the second being an empty
string. Unfortunately, StringTokenizer gets confused when it finds
two delimiters right next to each other. The alternatives are
preprocessing a string expected to have array delimiters in it, adding
spaces to those anomalous elements, or writing a different version of
StringTokenizer that can deal properly with empty elements.

--
===============================================================================
David M. Karr ; dk...@tcsi.com ; w:(425)487-8312 ; TCSI & Best Consulting
Software Engineer ; Unix/Java/C++/X ; BrainBench CJ12P (#12004)