It's always better to have it in a separate file, preferably in the JAR itself, so you can easily reach it with getResourceAsStream().
You can then easily edit this file without messing with code, and you can also modify it after the app is compiled to JAR.
It's a good practice to divide logic from data, in general.
Here are some methods from my FileUtils class you might like:
public static String streamToString(InputStream in) {
BufferedReader br = null;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
String line;
try {
br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(in));
while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
sb.append(line + "\n");
}
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.e(e);
} finally {
if (br != null) {
try {
br.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
Log.e(e);
}
}
}
return sb.toString();
}
public static InputStream stringToStream(String text) {
try {
return new ByteArrayInputStream(text.getBytes("UTF-8"));
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
Log.e(e);
return null;
}
}
public static InputStream getResource(String path) {
return FileUtils.class.getResourceAsStream(path);
}
You can also use a SimpleConfig class to parse lists and maps from files:
(comment out the Log.something calls and replace with System.err.println())
package net.mightypork.rpack.utils;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.LinkedHashMap;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Map.Entry;
/**
* Utility for parsing simple config files<br>
* # and // mark a comment<br>
* empty lines and lines without "=" are ignored<br>
* lines with "=" must have "key = value" format, or a warning is logged.<br>
* use "NULL" to create empty value.
*
* @author MightyPork
*/
public class SimpleConfig {
/**
* Load list from file
*
* @param file file
* @return map of keys and values
* @throws IOException
*/
public static List<String> listFromFile(File file) throws IOException {
String fileText = FileUtils.fileToString(file);
return listFromString(fileText);
}
/**
* Load map from file
*
* @param file file
* @return map of keys and values
* @throws IOException
*/
public static Map<String, String> mapFromFile(File file) throws IOException {
String fileText = FileUtils.fileToString(file);
return mapFromString(fileText);
}
/**
* Load list from string
*
* @param text text of the file
* @return map of keys and values
*/
public static List<String> listFromString(String text) {
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
String[] groupsLines = text.split("\n");
for (String s : groupsLines) {
// ignore invalid lines
if (s.length() == 0) continue;
if (s.startsWith("#") || s.startsWith("//")) continue;
// NULL value
if (s.equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) s = null;
if (s != null) s = s.replace("\\n", "\n");
// save extracted key-value pair
list.add(s);
}
return list;
}
/**
* Load map from string
*
* @param text text of the file
* @return map of keys and values
*/
public static Map<String, String> mapFromString(String text) {
LinkedHashMap<String, String> pairs = new LinkedHashMap<String, String>();
String[] groupsLines = text.split("\n");
for (String s : groupsLines) {
// ignore invalid lines
if (s.length() == 0) continue;
if (s.startsWith("#") || s.startsWith("//")) continue;
if (!s.contains("=")) continue;
// split and trim
String[] parts = s.split("=");
for (int i = 0; i < parts.length; i++) {
parts[i] = parts[i].trim();
}
// check if both parts are valid
if (parts.length == 0) {
Log.w("Bad line in config file: " + s);
continue;
}
if (parts.length == 1) {
parts = new String[] { parts[0], "" };
}
if (parts.length != 2) {
Log.w("Bad line in config file: " + s);
continue;
}
// NULL value
if (parts[0].equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) parts[0] = null;
if (parts[1].equalsIgnoreCase("NULL")) parts[1] = null;
if (parts[0] != null) parts[0] = parts[0].replace("\\n", "\n");
if (parts[1] != null) parts[1] = parts[1].replace("\\n", "\n");
// save extracted key-value pair
pairs.put(parts[0], parts[1]);
}
return pairs;
}
/**
* Save map to file
*
* @param target
* @param data
* @throws IOException
*/
public static void mapToFile(File target, Map<String, String> data) throws IOException {
String text = ""; //# File written by SimpleConfig
for (Entry<String, String> e : data.entrySet()) {
if (text.length() > 0) text += "\n";
String key = e.getKey();
String value = e.getValue();
if (key == null) key = "NULL";
if (value == null) value = "NULL";
key = key.replace("\n", "\\n");
value = value.replace("\n", "\\n");
text += key + " = " + value;
}
FileUtils.stringToFile(target, text);
}
/**
* Save list to file
*
* @param target
* @param data
* @throws IOException
*/
public static void listToFile(File target, List<String> data) throws IOException {
String text = ""; //# File written by SimpleConfig
for (String s : data) {
if (text.length() > 0) text += "\n";
if (s == null) s = "NULL";
s = s.replace("\n", "\\n");
text += s;
}
FileUtils.stringToFile(target, text);
}
}
