Reading a List from properties file and load with

Question

Similar to this question: http://forum.springsource.org/showthread.php?111992-Loading-a-list-from-properties-file-using-Value-annotation (for which there's no reply on)

I want to have a list of values in a .properties file, ie:

my.list.of.strings=ABC,CDE,EFG

And to load it in my class directly, ie:

@Value("${my.list.of.strings}")
private List<String> myList;

As I understand, an alternative of doing this is to have it in the spring config file, and load it as a bean reference (correct me if I'm wrong), ie

<bean name="list">
 <list>
  <value>ABC</value>
  <value>CDE</value>
  <value>EFG</value>
 </list>
</bean>

But is there any way of doing this? using a .properties file? ps: I would like to do this with out any custom code if possible.

Answer 1

All the above answers are correct. But you can achieve this in just one line. Please try following declaration and you will get all the comma separated values in a String list.

private @Value("#{T(java.util.Arrays).asList(projectProperties['my.list.of.strings'])}") List<String> myList;

And also you need to have the following line defined in your xml configuration.

<util:properties id="projectProperties" location="/project.properties"/>

just replace the path and file name of your properties file. And you are good to go. :)

Hope this helps you. Cheers.