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Embracing the Messiness in Search of Epic Solutions

Java: Exploring Preferences API

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BACKGROUND

In any written scripts or rich client apps, there is almost a need to persist the user preferences or app configurations.

Most of the time, we, the proud developers, handle that situation in very ad-hoc manner. When storing in a file, we use different formats: from old-boring XML, to cool-kid JSON, to even cooler-kid YAML or the kindergarten-kid key=value property. Then, we have to decide where to write the file to, whether to use C:\ and screw your non-windows users, whether to use backslashes to construct the file path or forward slashes because we are sick and tired escaping the effing backslashes.

The long story short is… yes, we, the proud developers, can do all that… or, as one of my current project peers like to say, “make it configurable” on literally everything to the point it’s pretty close of becoming a drinking game now.

But, the point I want to make here is… we are consistent on being inconsistent.

SOLUTION

Java provides the Preferences API as an attempt to solve this mess. Using this API, the developers do not need to know where or how to store the user preferences or app configurations. Rather, it relies on the native API to store the data: registry for Windows, .plist for Mac and XML for Unix/Linux.

The most interesting part is… the Preferences API has been around since JDK 1.4.

Code wise, it doesn’t get any simpler than this:-

// create new configuration or reference existing configuration
Preferences preferences = Preferences.userNodeForPackage(WuTangClan)

// insert/update 3 key/value pairs
preferences.put('key1', 'value1')
preferences.put('key2', 'value2')
preferences.put('key3', 'value3')

// returns 'value2'
println preferences.get('key2', '-')

// returns '-'
println preferences.get('invalid', '-')

// remove by key
preferences.remove('key3')

// delete everything
preferences.removeNode()

But, where and how exactly do Mac and Windows store this data?

There are several ways to get an instance of Preferences.

Preferences.userNodeForPackage(WuTangClan)

Mac

If WuTangClan class file is located under wu.tang.clan.config package, the configuration file is created at ~/Library/Preferences/wu.tang.clan.plist with the following content:-

{    "/wu/tang/clan/" = {
        "config/" = {
            "key1" = "value1";
            "key2" = "value2";
        };
    };
}

64-bit Windows + 64-bit JVM

Configuration is stored in the registry with the following key:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Prefs\wu\tang\clan\config

Preferences.userRoot().node(‘path’)

Example 1

Let’s assume we have this:-

Preferences.userRoot().node('wu')

Mac

The configuration is created at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.java.util.prefs.plist with the following content:-

{    "/" = {
        ...

        "wu/" = {
            "key1" = "value1";
            "key2" = "value2";
        };

        ...
    };
}

This file also contains configurations from other installed software.

64-bit Windows + 64-bit JVM

Configuration is stored in the registry with the following key:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Prefs\wu

Example 2

How about this?

Preferences.userRoot().node('wu/tang')

// ... OR ...

Preferences.userRoot().node('wu').node('tang')

Mac

The configuration still resides under ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.java.util.prefs.plist with the following content:-

{    "/" = {
        ...
        "wu/" = {
            "tang/" = {
                "key1" = "value1";
                "key2" = "value2";
            };
        };
        ...
    };
}

64-bit Windows + 64-bit JVM

Configuration is stored in the registry with the following key:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Prefs\wu\tang

Example 3

How about this?

Preferences.userRoot().node('wu/tang/clan')

// ... OR ...

Preferences.userRoot().node('wu').node('tang').node('clan')

Mac

Now, the shit is about to get real here.

Mac, for some reason, creates a stub under ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.java.util.prefs.plist with the following content:-

{    "/" = {
        ...
        "wu/" = { "tang/" = { "clan/" = { }; }; };
        ...
    };
}

The actual configuration now resides under ~/Library/Preferences/wu.tang.clan.plist:-

{    "/wu/tang/clan/" = {
        "key1" = "value1";
        "key2" = "value2";
    };
}

It appears when the path reaches certain depth, Mac will create the separate configuration file for it.

64-bit Windows + 64-bit JVM

Configuration is stored in the registry with the following key:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Prefs\wu\tang\clan

Preferences.systemNodeForPackage(WuTangClan) or Preferences.systemRoot().node(‘path’)

Instead of storing the configuration at user level, we may also store the configuration at system level.

Mac

Instead of storing under ~/Library/Preferences, the configuration is stored under /Library/Preferences.

On top of that, based on Java Development Guide for Mac, the configuration is only persisted if the user is an administrator.

The really weird part is the code will not throw any exceptions due to insufficient permission.

64-bit Windows + 64-bit JVM

Instead of storing under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\[path], the configuration is stored under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\[path].

Best Practices

I’m not sure if this is a best practice, but my personal preference is to specify my own string path through Preferences.userRoot().node(..).

Preferences.userNodeForPackage(..) worries me because if I refactor my code by moving the class files around, it may not find the existing configuration due to changed path.

When specifying the string path, do make sure the path value is rather unique to prevent reading an existing configuration from other installed software.

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