Is there a way to specify a default property value in Spring XML?

Question

We are using a PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer to use java properties in our Spring configuration (details here)

eg:

<foo name="port">
  <value>${my.server.port}</value>
</foo>

We would like to add an additional property, but have a distributed system where existing instances could all use a default value. Is there a way to avoid updating all of our properties files, by indicating a default value in the Spring config for when there isn't an overriding property value defined?

Answer 1

Are you looking for the PropertyOverrideConfigurer documented here

http://static.springsource.org/spring/docs/2.5.x/reference/beans.html#beans-factory-overrideconfigurer

The PropertyOverrideConfigurer, another bean factory post-processor, is similar to the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer, but in contrast to the latter, the original definitions can have default values or no values at all for bean properties. If an overriding Properties file does not have an entry for a certain bean property, the default context definition is used.

Answer 2

Spring 3 supports ${my.server.port:defaultValue} syntax.

Answer 3

http://thiamteck.blogspot.com/2008/04/spring-propertyplaceholderconfigurer.html points out that "local properties" defined on the bean itself will be considered defaults to be overridden by values read from files:

<bean id="propertyConfigurer"class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">  
  <property name="location"><value>my_config.properties</value></property>  
  <property name="properties">  
    <props>  
      <prop key="entry.1">123</prop>  
    </props>  
  </property>  
</bean>