Naming convention for properties in property file

Question

What are the naming conventions for property names defined in properties files in Java? Can I use uppercase or only lowercase?

For example: bankAccountNumber or bank.acc

Answer 1

In JSF you can see in ValidationMessages.properties something

javax.validation.constraints.Pattern.message

or in JsfMessages.properties

javax.faces.component.UISelectOne.INVALID

So you can use wherever you like, i like just lowercase, package formatted

Answer 2

As per my understanding, there is no any standard rule written for .properties file in java. but if you see the .properties files inside the lib folder of Java\jre most of them have lower cased .properties file names. And the properties themselves are also lower cased. such as:

psfontj2d.properties

key values

courier_new=courier
courier_new_bold=courier_bold

Answer 3

Actually Resource Bundle accepts only fully qualified base name of the bundle, with no file extension. In this case it will try to load the bundle of files like this

messages/EN/properties.properties

I am sure you intend something different than the conventional internationalization, but convention would have been "messages_en.properties" (en when language, EN when country)

Answer 4

Naming convention is recommended as lowercase in property file. bank.account.number this is more appreciable.

Answer 5

I guess there is no such common conventions for property files. However, using lowercase letters in an eligible/easy-to-understand format (e.g. bank.account.number) sounds good, and using the property files with their original extensions (.properties) is also recommended.

Answer 6

There's no particular standard for naming properties, but convention appears to be of the form

a.b.c.d = x

in lowercase. I would expect some sort of informal hierarchy e.g.

bank.
bank.account.
bank.account.name.
bank.account.pin.

etc.

If it's a property which directly affects a particular class I may name it after that class (or at least use the package name). However that is also an example of implementation leak, and I'd think seriously before doing that.