[CACTUS-206] cactus.sysproperties space delimiter in property file can be confusing

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Component/s: Maven Integration
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: thierry lach
• Created: 22/Apr/05 06:55
• Updated: 19/Oct/05 23:55

Description

The use of the space as a delimiter for cactus.sysproperties can cause unanticipated failures which may be extremely difficult to debug.

Consider the following example, with the property names split over multiple lines for clarity:

cactus.sysproperties=\
propertya\
propertyb\
propertyc
propertya=something
propertyb=something
propertyc=something

This will only work correctly if the indentation is done with spaces. If the three values are indented with tabs, property[abc] will not be set (because, I think, util:tokenize will be attempting to work with the string \n\tpropertya\n\tpropertyb\n\tpropertyc which contains no spaces.

I suggest adding an additional key in the plugin.properties, such as

cactus.sysproperties.delimiter=SPACE

and changing the relevant portions (three of them) of plugin.jelly to:

<!-- Pass any user-defined system properties -->
<j:set var="syspropDelim" value="${cactus.sysproperties.delimiter}"/>
<j:if test="${syspropDelim == 'SPACE'}">
<j:set var="syspropDelim" value=" "/>
</j:if>

<util:tokenize var="listOfProperties" delim="${syspropDelim}">${cactus.sysproperties}</util:tokenize>

This allows a user to set the property

cactus.sysproperties.delimiter=,

and then the following example works properly even using tabs:

cactus.sysproperties=\
propertya,\
propertyb,\
propertyc
propertya=something
propertyb=something
propertyc=something

Of course, you could just change the delimiter, but this approach would allow existing applications to work properly.