Does Java have something similar to Cocoa's NSUserDefaults?

Question

Mac OS X and iOS have a nice little class called NSUserDefaults. It's a singleton that lets you store strings, arrays, and primitives, and you can always implement some methods to add custom objects to it. It's super useful when you need to store a quick setting without dealing with file manipulations (for example, storing the last picked font name).

Does Java have something simple like this? I'd like to be able to store a user's last settings to reload a similar state when the program reloads, but I'm not sure what the best way to do this is in Java.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use the java.util.prefs API. How do I save preference user settings in Java? and What is the best way to save user settings in java application? have some helpful info. To get you started:

[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] setString:@"some string" forKey:@"some_key"];

becomes

Preferences prefs = Preferences.userNodeForPackage(this);
prefs.put("some_key", "some string");

and

[[NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults] stringForKey:@"some_key"];

becomes

Preferences prefs = Preferences.userNodeForPackage(this);
prefs.get("some_key");