How to read a .properties file which contains keys that have a period character using Shell script

I use simple grep inside function in bash script to receive properties from .properties file.

This properties file I use in two places - to setup dev environment and as application parameters.

I believe that grep may work slow in big loops but it solves my needs when I want to prepare dev environment.

Hope, someone will find this useful.

Example:

File: setup.sh

#!/bin/bash

ENV=${1:-dev}

function prop {
    grep "${1}" env/${ENV}.properties|cut -d'=' -f2
}

docker create \
    --name=myapp-storage \
    -p $(prop 'app.storage.address'):$(prop 'app.storage.port'):9000 \
    -h $(prop 'app.storage.host') \
    -e STORAGE_ACCESS_KEY="$(prop 'app.storage.access-key')" \
    -e STORAGE_SECRET_KEY="$(prop 'app.storage.secret-key')" \
    -e STORAGE_BUCKET="$(prop 'app.storage.bucket')" \
    -v "$(prop 'app.data-path')/storage":/app/storage \
    myapp-storage:latest

docker create \
    --name=myapp-database \
    -p "$(prop 'app.database.address')":"$(prop 'app.database.port')":5432 \
    -h "$(prop 'app.database.host')" \
    -e POSTGRES_USER="$(prop 'app.database.user')" \
    -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD="$(prop 'app.database.pass')" \
    -e POSTGRES_DB="$(prop 'app.database.main')" \
    -e PGDATA="/app/database" \
    -v "$(prop 'app.data-path')/database":/app/database \
    postgres:9.5

File: env/dev.properties

app.data-path=/apps/myapp/

#==========================================================
# Server properties
#==========================================================
app.server.address=127.0.0.70
app.server.host=dev.myapp.com
app.server.port=8080

#==========================================================
# Backend properties
#==========================================================
app.backend.address=127.0.0.70
app.backend.host=dev.myapp.com
app.backend.port=8081
app.backend.maximum.threads=5

#==========================================================
# Database properties
#==========================================================
app.database.address=127.0.0.70
app.database.host=database.myapp.com
app.database.port=5432
app.database.user=dev-user-name
app.database.pass=dev-password
app.database.main=dev-database

#==========================================================
# Storage properties
#==========================================================
app.storage.address=127.0.0.70
app.storage.host=storage.myapp.com
app.storage.port=4569
app.storage.endpoint=http://storage.myapp.com:4569
app.storage.access-key=dev-access-key
app.storage.secret-key=dev-secret-key
app.storage.region=us-east-1
app.storage.bucket=dev-bucket

Usage:

./setup.sh dev

As (Bourne) shell variables cannot contain dots you can replace them by underscores. Read every line, translate . in the key to _ and evaluate.

#/bin/sh

file="./app.properties"

if [ -f "$file" ]
then
  echo "$file found."

  while IFS='=' read -r key value
  do
    key=$(echo $key | tr '.' '_')
    eval ${key}=\${value}
  done < "$file"

  echo "User Id       = " ${db_uat_user}
  echo "user password = " ${db_uat_passwd}
else
  echo "$file not found."
fi

Note that the above only translates . to _, if you have a more complex format you may want to use additional translations. I recently had to parse a full Ant properties file with lots of nasty characters, and there I had to use:

key=$(echo $key | tr .-/ _ | tr -cd 'A-Za-z0-9_')

Since variable names in the BASH shell cannot contain a dot or space it is better to use an associative array in BASH like this:

#!/bin/bash

# declare an associative array
declare -A arr

# read file line by line and populate the array. Field separator is "="
while IFS='=' read -r k v; do
   arr["$k"]="$v"
done < app.properties

Testing:

Use declare -p to show the result:

  > declare -p arr  

        declare -A arr='([db.uat.passwd]="secret" [db.uat.user]="saple user" )'