Character '\' is lost when reading a String from a property file.

Question

Hi all,
I have encrypted information inside a property file, but when loading properties in my program, the String object used to store the value is changed by the lost of all �\� characters
# EIS password saved in the property file
password=WPLqQE0DlVF8Sg\=\=
#Value loaded in my String object
WPLqQE0DlVF8Sg==
Why is this happening? I use java.util.Properties java class to store and load my properties, and it is supposed to do it with the same encoding (ISO 8859-1).
Please, can someone explain me why this happened and how to solve it?
Best regards.

Answer 1

      public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
           OutputStream props = new FileOutputStream("test.properties");
           Properties p = new Properties();
           p.put("password", "pass=word#is!dumb");
           p.put("user", "    I am a Dummy");
           p.store(props, "Java forum demo props file");
           props.close();
           /* Properties file after store
            * user=\    I am a Dummy
            * password=pass\=word\#is\!dumb
           Properties post = new Properties();
           post.load(new FileInputStream("test.properties"));
           for(Iterator it = post.entrySet().iterator(); it.hasNext();)
            System.out.println(it.next());
            * After load from test.properties
            * user=    I am a Dummy
            * password=pass=word#is!dumb
      }Notice that the special chars are only in the file, not actually in the props. If you think otherwise, I don't know what to say. The \ is a special character that is used to escape other special chars, including itself. You can't create a string in java containing only one backslash, as java assumes the next char is being escaped. when you create a string in Java with one backslash, you have to have 2 backslashes. If you are storing data in the property file using something other than store, than you need to ensure that you are escaping all special charachters that the store method does
~Tim