Brief

read/write .properties file in line-oriented format
key=value per line through function.

the code refers to java.util.Properties in Java 1.6.

Common Usage

• file I/O:

  # input
  properties = load(file)
  # or update existing dictionary
  load(file, properties)
  
  # output
  store(file, properties)
  

• custom input:
  class LineReader read in one key-value data. It skips all comment lines,
  blank lines, leading whitespace, and processes multi-line data.
  loadSingle(string) read each piece of data given above to key-value.

  for line in LineReader(file): # each key-value line has no line seperator
      key, value = loadSingle(line)
      # do something
  

• custom output:
  storeComments(writable, comments, linesep=os.linesep))
  write comment (accept multi-line), can specify the line terminator.
  storeSingle(writable, key, value, sep='=', linesep=os.linesep)
  write one key-value, can specify the seperator and the line terminator.

  storeComments(file, 'this is a comment')
  storeSingle(file, 'key', 'value')
  

File Format

normally each line is comment line or a key-value pair.

main features:

• seperate key and value by one of =, :, , \t
• ignore whitespaces leading in a line or around = or :
• comment line begin with # or !
• escape unicode by \uxxxx
• escape special characters by adding \

others:

• data line ends with \ discard the line break

differences with Java:

• store method will not write datetime comment

Changelog

v0.1.1, 2019-2-9

• change to run with python3

v0.1.0, 2018-6-7

• set up.