2009/11/10 Mark Reinhold <m...@sun.com>:
> Yet ... how much of a problem is this outside of the JDK itself and,
> more generally, for new code rather than old?
>
> If there are n (for n <= 43) problematic uses in the JDK then we could
> just fix those without defining any new public API. For new code we
> should encourage people to use String.format("...%n...") rather than
> access the line.separator property explicitly.
Commons Lang defines the class SystemUtils:
http://commons.apache.org/lang/api-2.3/org/apache/commons/lang/SystemUtils.html
This has constants for all the main system properties.
Within my work 1.4MLOC codebase, SystemUtils.LINE_SEPARATOR is used 65
times, with a further 7 cases within other parts of Commons Lang
itself. This is a commonly used value.
SystemUtils contains many more constants though. This is beneficial
for code clarity, and avoiding "magic" property names that are
difficult to find when you want them. While most are rarely used, all
will be used occasionally (otherwise why make them available). Asking
developers to use "magic" names for the well-defined common cases
seems non-sensical.
As such I'm definitely in favour of line separator, but would also
want to see others (including common directory locations like IO
home).
Stephen
