Reading Java properties in GitHub Actions

I just want to share another GitHub Action (create by me) that you may find useful in your Java projects.

Java projects often use .properties files to store configuration. Personally, I hate them in favor of YML or even XML (I beg you: use XML to configure Log4j, not .properties), but still, I have to work with them. There are existing actions in the Marketplace able to parse those, but they usually use grep and bash. Although it may work, I think it's more robust to use special facilities, like java.util.Properties to read values from .properties files.

So, I wrote a simple Kotlin program that reads Java .properties and wrapped it into a GitHub Action. This Action makes values from .properties available in your GitHub Actions workflows.

Returning a single property is as simple as:

- uses: madhead/read-java-properties@latest
  id: version
  with:
    file: gradle.properties
    property: version
    default: 0.0.1

- run: echo ${{ steps.version.outputs.value }} # Project's version from gradle.properties or 0.0.1 if it is not defined there

Alternatively, you could return all the values from the .properties file by employing the all flag:

- uses: madhead/read-java-properties@latest
  id: all
  with:
    file: gradle.properties
    all: true

- run: echo ${{ steps.all.outputs.version }} # Project's version from gradle.properties
- run: echo ${{ steps.all.outputs.groupId }} # Project's groupId from gradle.properties
  …

That's all for today, just save the link: madhead/read-java-properties, and, as always, feel free to open issues if something is not working as needed or expected.