Spring “spring.profiles.include” overrides

Question

My intention is to have two profiles in a spring boot application - development and production one. Development profile is meant just to override some variables of production pr

Answer 1

Given:

• The files: application-default.yml, application-foo.yml, application-bar.yml
• myproperty: default in application-default.yml
• myproperty: foo in application-foo.yml
• myproperty: bar in application-bar.yml

I think these 2 use cases of using profiles are a little bit opposite in the meaning:

1. In the most common case (-Dspring.profiles.active but no spring.profiles.include):

   1. When profile foo or boo are activated the properties from application-foo.yml (or application-bar.yml) will add/override the ones from application-default.yml.
   2. When profiles foo,bar are activated then properties from bar will add/override those from application-foo.yml and then those from application-default.yml.

   E.g: -Dspring.profiles.active=foo,bar the property from application-bar.yml wins (overrides) -> myproperty: bar

2. In the second case (spring.profiles.include is used)

   1. The properties from the include statement add/overrides the properties from the application-*.yml files which uses spring.profiles.include

   I.e.: If application-boo.yml contains the spring.profiles.include=foo then properties from application-foo.bar adds/override properties from from application-bar.yml which add/override those from application-default.yml.

   On the other hand (I suppose) if application-boo.yml includes the spring.profiles.include=default,foo then properties from application-foo.yml will add/override those from application-default.yml which add/overrides those from application-bar.yml. So myproperty: bar. I wouldn't recommend the usage of default in combination with spring.profiles.include because this way it mixes the two cases and the override strategy is counterintuitive considering application-default.yml has a special treatment in springboot.

I also admit I am not at all a fan of the spring.profiles.active usage in application-*.yml files. I prefer to activate the profiles with system properties (maven included) or env variables. IMO it makes the whole profiles thing clearer to me.

If with my (herein above)reasoning I am on the wrong path please let me know.