Properties read from traditional application.properties files are not trimmed

[brenuart]

The property values read from traditional application.properties configuration files are not trimmed. This can lead to undesired/strange behaviours at runtime:

• @ConditionalOnProperty annotation perform a simple equals between the expected and received value (without type conversion). A property value set to 'true ' (notice the space at the end) is likely to fail the condition
• developers must/should trim the injected string values themselves

Not trimming values out of properties files is error prone (you can't blame a user if they forgot a blank at the end of the line - they don't see it). It may be acceptable for XML files however: value is between start/end markers so the blank is visible.

Proposition is to update the PropertiesPropertySourceLoader so it automatically trims values read from .properties files.

[wilkinsona]

We've discussed this and decided that there's no way that we can safely trim properties as we have no way of knowing whether or not any trailing whitespace was intentional.

If you have a problem where developers are leaving trailing whitespace in a properties file and you know that you never want such trailing whitespace, I would recommend configuring your editor to remove it automatically.

[lunarcloud]

At least add a warning!
This ran us crazy trying to figure out why some people saw an error and others didn't, only to find out it was because of-what most editors show as-invisible characters!

[lunarcloud]

Nevermind. My issue was with the logging properties reader, not the generic property reading.