ConfigLib

A Minecraft library for saving, loading, updating, and commenting YAML configuration files.

This library facilitates creating, saving, loading, updating, and commenting YAML configuration files. It does so by automatically mapping instances of configuration classes to serializable maps which are first transformed into YAML and then saved to some specified file.

For a step-by-step tutorial that shows most features of this library in action check out the Tutorial page on the wiki!

Features

• Automatic creation, saving, loading, and updating of configuration files
• Support for comments through annotations
• Support for all primitive types, their wrapper types, and strings
• Support for enums, records, and POJOs (+ inheritance!)
• Support for (nested) lists, sets, arrays, and maps
• Support for BigInteger and BigDecimal
• Support for LocalDate, LocalTime, LocalDateTime, and Instant
• Support for UUID, File, Path, URL, and URI
• Support for Bukkit's ConfigurationSerializable types (e.g. ItemStack)
• Option to exclude fields from being converted
• Option to format field and component names before conversion
• Option to customize null handling
• Option to customize serialization by providing your own serializers
• Option to add headers and footers to configuration files
• ...and a few more!

Usage example

This section contains a short usage example to get you started. The whole range of features is discussed in the following sections. Information on how to import this library is located at the end of this documentation.

For a step-by-step tutorial with a more advanced example check out the Tutorial page on the wiki.

If you want support for Bukkit classes like ItemStack, check out the Configuration properties section.

public final class Example {
    // * To create a configuration annotate a class with @Configuration and make sure that
    //   it has a no-args constructor.
    // * Now add fields to that class and assign them default values.
    // * That's it! Fields can be private; setters are not required.
    @Configuration
    public static class BaseConfiguration {
        private String host = "127.0.0.1";
        private int port = 1234;
        // The library supports lists, sets, and maps.
        private Set<String> blockedAddresses = Set.of("8.8.8.8");
        // Fields can be ignored by making them final, transient, static or by
        // annotating them with @Ignore.
        private final double ignoreMe = 3.14;
    }

    // This library supports records; no @Configuration annotation required
    public record User(
            String username,
            @Comment("Please choose a strong password.")
            String password
    ) {}

    // Subclassing of configurations and nesting of configurations in other configurations
    // is also supported. Subclasses don't need to be annotated again.
    public static final class UserConfiguration extends BaseConfiguration {
        // You can add comments with the @Comment annotation. Each string in the comment
        // array is written (as a comment) on a new line.
        @Comment({"The admin user has full access.", "Choose a proper password!"})
        User admin = new User("root", "toor"); // The User class is a record!
        List<User> blockedUsers = List.of(
                new User("user1", null), // null values are supported
                new User("user2", null)
        );
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var configFile = Paths.get("/tmp/config.yml");
        var config = new UserConfiguration();

        // Save a new instance to the configuration file
        YamlConfigurations.save(configFile, UserConfiguration.class, config);

        // Load a new instance from the configuration file
        config = YamlConfigurations.load(configFile, UserConfiguration.class);
        System.out.println(config.admin.username);
        System.out.println(config.blockedUsers);

        // Modify and save the configuration file
        config.blockedUsers.add(new User("user3", "pass3"));
        YamlConfigurations.save(configFile, UserConfiguration.class, config);
    }
}

By running the above code, a new YAML configuration is created at /tmp/config.yml. Its content looks like this:

host: 127.0.0.1
port: 1234
blockedAddresses:
  - 8.8.8.8
# The admin user has full access.
# Choose a proper password!
admin:
  username: root
  # Please choose a strong password.
  password: toor
blockedUsers:
  - username: user1
  - username: user2
  - username: user3
    password: pass3

Two things are noticeable here:

1. Not every user in the blockedUsers list has a password mapping. This is because null values are not output by default. That behavior can be changed by the builder.
2. The password of the user with username user3 has no comment. This is due to limitations of the YAML library. Configurations in lists, sets, or maps cannot have their comments printed.

General information

In the following sections the term configuration type refers to any record type or to any non-generic class that is directly or indirectly (i.e. through subclassing) annotated with @de.exlll.configlib.Configuration. Accordingly, the term configuration refers to an instance of such a type.

Declaring configuration types

To declare a configuration type, either define a record or annotate a class with @Configuration and make sure that it has a no-args constructor. The no-args constructor can be set private. Inner classes (i.e. the ones that are nested but not static) have an implicit synthetic constructor with at least one argument and are therefore not supported.

Now simply add components to your record or fields to your class whose type is any of the supported types listed in the next section. You can (and should) initialize all fields of a configuration class with non-null default values.

Supported types

A configuration type may only contain fields or components of the following types:

Type class	Types
Boolean types	boolean, and Boolean
Integer types	byte, short, int, long, and their respective wrapper types
Floating point types	float, double, and their respective wrapper types
Characters and strings	char, Character, String
Big numeric types	BigInteger, BigDecimal
Time related types	LocalTime, LocalDate, LocalDateTime, Instant
Utility types	UUID, File, Path, URL, URI
Enums	Any Java enum
Configurations	Any Java record or any class annotated with @Configuration
ConfigurationSerializable	All Bukkit classes that implement this interface, like ItemStack
Collections	(Nested) Lists, sets, maps*, or arrays of previously listed types

(*) Map keys can only be of simple or enum type, i.e. they cannot be in the Collections, Configurations, or ConfigurationSerializable type class.

Examples of supported types

The following class contains examples of types that this library supports:

public final class SupportedTypes {
    boolean supported;
    Character supported;
    String supported;
    LocalTime supported;
    UUID supported;
    ExampleEnum supported;  // where 'ExampleEnum' is some Java enum type
    ExampleConfig supported;  // where 'ExampleConfig' is a class annotated with @Configuration
    ExampleRecord supported;  // where 'ExampleRecord' is a Java record

    /* collection types */
    List<BigInteger> supported;
    Set<Double> supported;
    LocalDate[] supported;
    Map<ExampleEnum, ExampleConfig> supported;

    /* nested collection types */
    List<Map<ExampleEnum, LocalDate>> supported;
    int[][] supported;
    Map<Integer, List<Map<Short, Set<ExampleRecord>>>> supported;

    // supported if a custom serializer is registered
    java.awt.Point supported;

    // supported when a special properties object is used (explained further below)
    org.bukkit.inventory.ItemStack supported;
}

Examples of unsupported types

The following class contains examples of types that this library does (and will) not support:

public final class UnsupportedTypes<T> {
    Map<Point, String> unsupported;        // invalid map key
    Map<List<String>, String> unsupported; // invalid map key
    Box<String> unsupported;               // custom parameterized type
    List<? extends String> unsupported;    // wildcard type
    List<?> unsupported;                   // wildcard type
    List<?>[] unsupported;                 // wildcard type
    T unsupported;                         // type variable
    List unsupported;                      // raw type
    List[] unsupported;                    // raw type
    List<String>[] unsupported;            // generic array type
    Set<Integer>[] unsupported;            // generic array type
    Map<Byte, Byte>[] unsupported;         // generic array type
}

Loading and saving configurations

There are two ways to load and save configurations. Which way you choose depends on your liking. Both ways have three methods in common:

• The save method saves a configuration to a file. The file is created if it does not exist and is overwritten otherwise.
• The load method creates a new configuration instance and populates it with values taken from a file. For classes, the no-args constructor is used to create a new instance. For records, the canonical constructor is called.
• The update method is a combination of load and save and the method you'd usually want to use: it takes care of creating the configuration file if it does not exist and otherwise updates it to reflect changes to (the fields or components of) the configuration type.

Example of update behavior when configuration file exists

Let's say you have the following configuration type:

@Configuration 
public final class C {
    int i = 10; 
    int j = 11; 
}

... and a YAML configuration file that contains:

i: 20
k: 30

Now, when you use one of the methods below to call update for that configuration type and file, the configuration instance that update returns will have its i variable initialized to 20 and its j variable will have its default of 11. After the operation, the configuration file will contain:

i: 20
j: 11

To exemplify the usage of these three methods we assume for the following sections that you have implemented the configuration type below and have access to some regular java.nio.file.Path object configurationFile.

@Configuration
public final class Config { /* some fields */ }

Way 1

The first way is to create a configuration store and use it directly to save, load, or update configurations.

YamlConfigurationProperties properties = YamlConfigurationProperties.newBuilder().build();
YamlConfigurationStore<Config> store = new YamlConfigurationStore<>(Config.class, properties);

Config config1 = store.load(configurationFile);
store.save(config1, configurationFile);
Config config2 = store.update(configurationFile);

Way 2

The second way is to use the static methods from the YamlConfigurations class.

Config config1 = YamlConfigurations.load(configurationFile, Config.class);
YamlConfigurations.save(configurationFile, Config.class, config1);
Config config2 = YamlConfigurations.update(configurationFile, Config.class);

Each of these methods has two additional overloads: One that takes a properties object and another that lets you configure a properties object builder. For example, the overloads of the load method are:

// overload 1
YamlConfigurationProperties properties = YamlConfigurationProperties.newBuilder().build();
Config c1 = YamlConfigurations.load(configurationFile, Config.class, properties);

// overload 2
Config c2 = YamlConfigurations.load(
    configurationFile,
    Config.class,
    builder -> builder.inputNulls(true).outputNulls(false)
); 

---

All three methods can also be passed a Java record instead of a class. To provide default values for records when calling the update method, you can add a constructor with no parameters that initializes its components. This constructor is only called if the configuration file does not exist.

record User(String name, String email) {
    User() { this("John Doe", "john@doe.com"); }
}
User user = YamlConfigurations.update(configurationFile, User.class);

Configuration properties

Instances of the ConfigurationProperties class allow customization of how configurations are stored and loaded. To create such an instance, instantiate a new builder using the YamlConfigurationProperties.newBuilder() method, configure it, and finally call its build() method. Alternatively, you can use the toBuilder() method of an existing YamlConfigurationProperties to create a new builder that is initialized with values takes from the properties object.

Check out the methods of the builder class to see which configuration options are available.

Support for Bukkit classes like ItemStack

There is a special YamlConfigurationProperties object with name BUKKIT_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES that adds support for Bukkit's ConfigurationSerializable types. If you want to use any of these types in your configuration, you have to use that object as a starting point:

YamlConfigurationProperties properties = ConfigLib.BUKKIT_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES.toBuilder()
     // ...further configure the builder...
    .build();

To get access to this object, you have to import configlib-paper instead of configlib-yaml as described in the Import section.

Comments

The fields or components of a configuration can be annotated with the @Comment annotation. This annotation takes an array of strings. Each of these strings is written onto a new line as a comment. The strings can contain \n characters. Empty strings are written as newlines (not as comments).

If a configuration type C that defines comments is used (as a field or component) within another configuration type, the comments of C are written with the proper indentation. However, if instances of C are stored inside a collection, their comments are not printed when the collection is written.

Serializing the following configuration as YAML ...

@Configuration
public final class ExampleConfiguration {
    @Comment({"Hello", "", " ", "World"})
    private String commentedField = "commented field";
}

... results in the YAML file shown below:

 # Hello

 #  
 # World
 commentedField: commented field

Similarly, if you define the following record configuration and save it ...

record User(@Comment("The name") String name, @Comment("The address") Address address) {}
record Address(@Comment("The street") String street) {}

User user = new User("John Doe", new Address("10 Downing St"));

... you get:

# The name
name: John Doe
# The address
address:
  # The street
  street: 10 Downing St

Subclassing

Subclassing of configurations types is supported. Subclasses of configuration types don't need to be annotated with @Configuration. When a configuration is written, the fields of parent classes are written before the fields of the child in a top to bottom manner. Parent configurations can be abstract.

Shadowing of fields

Shadowing of fields refers to the situation where a subclass of configuration has a field that has the same name as a field in one of its super classes. Shadowing of fields is currently not supported. (This restriction might easily be lifted. If you need this feature, please open an issue and describe how to handle name clashes.)

Ignoring and filtering fields

Fields that are final, static, transient or annotated with @Ignore are neither serialized nor updated during deserialization. You can filter out additional fields by providing an instance of FieldFilter to the configuration properties. Record components cannot be filtered.

Handling of missing and null values

Missing values

When a configuration file is read, values that correspond to a field of a configuration type or to a component of a record type might be missing. That can happen, for example, when somebody deleted that field from the configuration file, when the definition of a configuration or record type is changed, or when the NameFormatter that was used to create that file is replaced.

In such cases, fields of configuration types keep the default value you assigned to them and record components are initialized with the default value of their corresponding type.

Null values

NOTE: Null values written to a configuration file generally don't give any indication about which kinds of values the configuration expects. Therefore, they not only make it harder for the users of that configuration file to properly configure it, but they might also prevent loading a configuration if the values the users set are of the wrong type.

Although strongly discouraged, null values are supported and ConfigurationProperties let you configure how they are handled when serializing and deserializing a configuration:

• By setting outputNulls to false, class fields, record components, and collection elements that are null are not output. Any comments that belong to such fields are also not written.
• By setting inputNulls to false, null values read from the configuration file are treated as missing and are, therefore, handled as described in the section above.
• By setting inputNulls to true, null values read from the configuration file override the corresponding default values of a configuration type with null or set the component value of a record type to null. If the field or component type is primitive, an exception is thrown.

The following code forbids null values to be output but allows null values to be input. By default, both are forbidden which makes the call to outputNulls in this case redundant.

YamlConfigurationProperties.newBuilder()
        .outputNulls(false)
        .inputNulls(true)
        .build();

Field and component name formatting

You can define how fields and component names are formatted by configuring the configuration properties with a custom formatter. Formatters are implementations of the NameFormatter interface. You can implement this interface yourself or use one of the several formatters this library provides. These pre-defined formatters can be found in the NameFormatters class.

The following code formats fields using the IDENTITY formatter (which is the default).

YamlConfigurationProperties.newBuilder()
        .setNameFormatter(NameFormatters.IDENTITY)
        .build();

Type conversion and custom serializers

Before instances of the types listed in the supported types section can be stored, they need to be converted into serializable types (i.e. into types the underlying YAML library knows how to handle). The conversion happens according to the following table:

Source type	Target type
Boolean types	Boolean
Integer types	Long
Floating point types	Double
Characters and strings	String
Big numeric types	String
Time related types	String
Utility types	String
Enums	String
Configurations	Map<String, ?>
Set<S>	List<T>*
List<S>	List<T>
S[]	List<T>
Map<S1, S2>	Map<T1, T2>
ConfigurationSerializable	String

(*) By default, sets are serialized as lists. This can be changed through the configuration properties. This also means that Sets are valid target types.

Serializer selection

To convert the value of a field or record component F with (source) type S into a serializable value of some target type, a serializer has to be selected. Serializers are instances of the de.exlll.configlib.Serializer interface and are selected based on S. Put differently, serializers are always selected based on the compile-time type of F and never on the runtime type of its value.

Why should I care about this?

This distinction makes a difference (and might lead to confusion) when you have fields or record components whose type is a configuration type, and you extend that configuration type. Concretely, assume you have written two configuration classes A and B where B extends A. Then, if you use A a = new B() in your main configuration, only the fields of a A will be stored when you save your main configuration. That is because the serializer of field a was selected based on the compile-time type of a which is A and not B. The same happens if you have a List<A> and put instances of B (or some other subclass of A) in it.

Custom serializers

If you want to add support for a type that is not a record or whose class is not annotated with @Configuration, you can register a custom serializer. Serializers are instances of the de.exlll.configlib.Serializer interface. When implementing that interface you have to make sure that you convert your source type into one of the valid target types listed in the table above. The serializer then has to be registered through a ConfigurationProperties object.

The following Serializer serializes instances of java.awt.Point into strings and vice versa.

public final class PointSerializer implements Serializer<Point, String> {
    @Override
    public String serialize(Point element) {
        return element.x + ":" + element.y;
    }

    @Override
    public Point deserialize(String element) {
        String[] parts = element.split(":");
        int x = Integer.parseInt(parts[0]);
        int y = Integer.parseInt(parts[1]);
        return new Point(x, y);
    }
}

Custom serializers takes precedence over the serializers provided by this library.

Changing the type of fields or record components

Changing the type of fields or record components is not supported. If you change the type of one of these but your configuration file still contains a value of the old type, a type mismatch will occur when loading a configuration from that file. Instead, remove the old element and add a new one with a different name.

Recursive type definitions

Recursive type definitions are currently not allowed but might be supported in a future version if this feature is requested.

Examples of recursive type definitions

Neither direct nor indirect recursive type definitions are supported.

public final class RecursiveTypDefinitions {
    // Direct recursive definition
    @Configuration
    static final class R {
        R r;
    }

    // Indirect recursive definition
    @Configuration
    static final class R1 {
        R2 r2;
    }

    @Configuration
    static final class R2 {
        R1 r1;
    }
}

Project structure

This project contains three classes of modules:

• The configlib-core module contains most of the logic of this library. In it, you can find (among other things), the object mapper that converts configuration instances to maps (and vice versa), most serializers, and the classes responsible for the extraction of comments. It does not contain anything Minecraft related.
• The configlib-yaml module contains the classes that can save configuration instances as YAML files and instantiate new instances from such files. This module does not contain anything Minecraft related, either.
• The configlib-paper, configlib-velocity, and configlib-waterfall modules contain basic plugins that are used to conveniently load this library. These three modules shade the -core module, the -yaml module, and the YAML parser when the shadowJar task is executed. The shaded jar files are released on the releases page.
  • The configlib-paper module additionally contains the ConfigLib.BUKKIT_DEFAULT_PROPERTIES object which adds support for the serialization of Bukkit classes like ItemStack as described here.

Import

To use this library, import it into your project with Maven or Gradle. Examples of how to do that are at the end of this section within the spoilers. Currently, there are two repositories from which you can choose: jitpack.io and GitHub (which requires authentication, see this issue if you have any problems).

This library has additional dependencies (namely, a YAML parser) which are not exposed by the artifact you import. The current repository provides plugin versions of this library which bundle all its dependencies, so you don't have to worry about them. Also, these versions make it easier for you to update this library if you have written multiple plugins that use it.

The plugin versions can be downloaded from the releases page where you can identify them by their -paper-, -waterfall-, and -velocity- infix and -all suffix. Except for the -paper- version, the other two plugin versions currently don't add any additional functionality. If you use these versions, don't forget to add them as a dependency in the plugin.yml (for Paper and Waterfall) or to the dependencies array (for Velocity) of your own plugin.

Alternatively, if you don't want to use an extra plugin, you can shade the -yaml version with its YAML parser yourself.

Import examples

If you want serialization support for Bukkit classes like ItemStack, replace configlib-yaml with configlib-paper (see here).

Import via jitpack.io

Maven

<repository>
    <id>jitpack.io</id>
    <url>https://jitpack.io</url>
</repository>

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.github.Exlll.ConfigLib</groupId>
    <artifactId>configlib-yaml</artifactId>
    <version>v4.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

repositories { maven { url 'https://jitpack.io' } }

dependencies { implementation 'com.github.Exlll.ConfigLib:configlib-yaml:v4.1.0' }

repositories { maven { url = uri("https://jitpack.io") } }

dependencies { implementation("com.github.Exlll.ConfigLib:configlib-yaml:v4.1.0") }

Import via GitHub

Importing via GitHub requires authentication. Check this issue if you have any trouble with that.

Maven

<repository>
    <id>de.exlll</id>
    <url>https://maven.pkg.github.com/Exlll/ConfigLib</url>
</repository>

<dependency>
    <groupId>de.exlll</groupId>
    <artifactId>configlib-yaml</artifactId>
    <version>4.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

repositories { maven { url 'https://maven.pkg.github.com/Exlll/ConfigLib' } }

dependencies { implementation 'de.exlll:configlib-yaml:4.0.0' }

repositories { maven { url = uri("https://maven.pkg.github.com/Exlll/ConfigLib") } }

dependencies { implementation("de.exlll:configlib-yaml:4.0.0") }

Future work

This section contains ideas for upcoming features. If you want any of these to happen any time soon, please open an issue where we can discuss the details.

• JSON, TOML, XML support
• Post-load/Pre-save hooks
• More features and control over updating/versioning
• More control over the ordering of fields, especially in parent/child class scenarios
• Recursive definitions
• Shadowing of fields