[LANG-1075] Replace System.getProperty("file|path.separator") with File.separator|pathSeparator

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Closed
• Priority: Minor
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 3.5
• Assignee: Charles Honton
• Reporter: Sebb
• Created: 04/Dec/14 15:34
• Updated: 19/Oct/16 07:00
• Resolved: 14/Jul/15 05:27

Description

The file separator character is available from both File.separator and System.getProperty("file.separator").

The former is guaranteed to be a string of length 1, but the latter can be defined as a longer string on the Java command line. Thus the two can be different, but still allow the JVM to start up.
I found the following worked:

java -Dfile.separator=/xyz

for Unix or the equivalent \xyz on Windows.

[Using a different first character does not work - the JVM usually throws an
exception as it cannot find some required files if the sep. is incorrect.]

It looks like only the first character of the property is used by the JVM.
However, this is not done by the application code I have seen, which means that there could be a discrepancy between the two methods.

File.separator has the additional benefit that it is not subject to a privilege
check.

The same reasoning applies to "path.separator" => File.pathSeparator

Commons code should always use the File constants.