Reading Java Properties file without escaping values

Question

My application needs to use a .properties file for configuration. In the properties files, users are allow to specify paths.

Problem

Propert

Answer 1

You can "preprocess" the file before loading the properties, for example:

public InputStream preprocessPropertiesFile(String myFile) throws IOException{
    Scanner in = new Scanner(new FileReader(myFile));
    ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    while(in.hasNext())
        out.write(in.nextLine().replace("\\","\\\\").getBytes());
    return new ByteArrayInputStream(out.toByteArray());
}

And your code could look this way

Properties properties = new Properties();
properties.load(preprocessPropertiesFile("path/myfile.properties"));

Doing this, your .properties file would look like you need, but you will have the properties values ready to use.

*I know there should be better ways to manipulate files, but I hope this helps.