Configuration files and variables

Question

All,
Sorry if this is a repost - I thought I posted it earlier today but I can't find it by searching for my username :(
I've got an application that I would like to enable so that it works with a configuration file. In perl I would use one of the CPAN Config modules and I then just create a file in the form of
NAME=VALUE
I want to be able to set various things based on values in the configuration file, but I have no idea what is considered best practice in Java for doing this. The application is a slideshow app, so I want to set things like window size and slide delay.
At a point in the future, I will probably want to make the application able to modify / create this configuration file using the application interface.
In light of these questions, what is the best way of achieving this ?
Thanks in advance,

Answer 1

java.util.Properties can be used to store the name,value pairs specified in the file. New name,value pairs need can also be added to the file back.
The following code may help you out..
I have a file named props.txt having the values
Name1=Value1
Name2=Value2
The following code will read the values, modify the value for a kay and add a new key,value and updates teh file with these changes.
public class ReadProperties {
    public static void main(String[] args)
        try
            String strFileName = "props.txt";
            Properties prop = new Properties();        
            InputStream inp = null;        
            ClassLoader classLoader = null;
         classLoader = ReadProperties.class.getClassLoader();
            if (null != classLoader)
                 inp = classLoader.getResourceAsStream(strFileName);
           else
                inp = ClassLoader.getSystemResourceAsStream(strFileName);     
            prop.load(inp);
            //This block is used to list all the properties in the file
            Set s =  prop.entrySet();
            for(Iterator it = s.iterator();it.hasNext();)
                Map.Entry map = (Map.Entry)it.next();                              
                System.out.println("map.getKey().toString() : values :  " + map.getKey().toString() + " : "+ prop.getProperty(map.getKey().toString()));               
            // To get only a particular key's value, use
            System.out.println("value for Name1 : " +prop.getProperty("Name1"));         
            //This is to set the proeprties dynamically into the object.
            prop.setProperty("Name3","Value3");
            prop.setProperty("Name1","Value1");
            //If the dynamically aded proeprties neded to be stored in the file.. use the following
            prop.store(new FileOutputStream("props.txt"),null);          
        catch (FileNotFoundException e)
            e.printStackTrace();
        catch (IOException e)
            e.printStackTrace();
}Regards,
Raviprakash.D