Xml Strings for Java Properties IO

Store a Properties object as a String…

Ever needed to convert a java.util.Properties object directly to an xml string?  It’s actually pretty easy and here’s how you do it:

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.util.Properties;

public class PropertiesToXMLString
{
	public static void main(String[] argv)
	{
		Properties properties = new Properties();
		properties.put("firstName", "John");
		properties.put("lastName", "Hancock");
		properties.put("address", "3241 NoLane Drive");
		properties.put("city", "Anytown");
		properties.put("county", "Bounty");
		properties.put("state", "Alaska");
		properties.put("country", "USA");

		ByteArrayOutputStream byteArrayOutputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
		try
		{
			properties.storeToXML(byteArrayOutputStream, "Properties to XML string...");
			String xmlString = byteArrayOutputStream.toString();
			System.out.println(xmlString);
		}
		catch(Exception e)
		{
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}

Load a Properties object from a String

In addition to storing a properties object to a String, it is just as easy to load a properties object from a string:

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.InvalidPropertiesFormatException;
import java.util.Properties;

public class PropertiesFromXMLString
{
	public static void main(String[] argv)
	{
		String xmlInputString = "";
		xmlInputString += "";
		xmlInputString += "
";
		xmlInputString += "XML string to properties...";
		xmlInputString += "world";
		xmlInputString += "";

		Properties properties = new Properties();
		ByteArrayInputStream byteArrayInputStream = new ByteArrayInputStream(xmlInputString.getBytes());
		try
		{
			properties.loadFromXML(byteArrayInputStream);
			String helloValue = (String)properties.get("hello");
			System.out.println("Hello value: "+helloValue);
		}
		catch(Exception e)
		{
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
}