Rhino wrote:
...
I was looking at the source code for the Properties class,
specifically the list() methods (I finally took a minute to find out
where the source code in the Java API is again) and I didn't see any
contructors for writers or streams in there. Is Properties not a good
class to imitate for my situation then?
...
In general, you should not imitate classes, such as Properties, that
were designed very early in the life of Java. Many of them suffer from
at least one of two problems:
1. The initial Java API writers may have been very smart, but the
collective learning of the Java community over the years has often led
to better techniques.
In particular, they tend to depend too much on inheritance, rather than
composition. Making Properties extend Hashtable creates problems.
2. They are limited in their use of features added to the language since
they were defined.
Even if one were to expose the map aspects of Properties, it would
have been defined to implement Map<String,String>, rather than extend
Hashtable, if the Map interface and generics had existed when it was
defined. The Map optional methods that are undesirable for Properties,
put and putAll, would have thrown UnsupportedOperationException.
But it is a very practical class. It is easy to use. Any beginner
can use it. Those that want something more sophistcated can use
the MS stuff. MS have a ton of practical but not