Catch exception while initializing static final variable

Question

I have following code:

public class LoadProperty
{
public static final String property_file_location = System.getProperty("app.vmargs.propertyfile");
public static final String application-startup_mode = System.getProperty("app.vmargs.startupmode");
}

It reads from 'VM arguments' and assigns to variables.

Since static final variable is only initialized at class load, how can I catch exception in case some one forgets to pass parameter.

As of now, when I am using 'property_file_location' variable, exception is encountered in following cases:

• If value is present, and location is wrong, FileNotFound exception comes.
• If it is not initialized properly(value is null), it throws NullPointerException.

I need to handle second case at time of initialization only.

Similiar is case of second variable.

Whole idea is

• To initialize application configuration parameters.
• If successfully initialized, continue.
• If not, alert user and terminate application.

Answer 1

You can use a static initializer block as suggested by the rest of the answers. Even better move this functionality to a static utility class so you can still use them as an one-liner. You could then even provide default values e.g.

// PropertyUtils is a new class that you implement
// DEFAULT_FILE_LOCATION could e.g. out.log in current folder
public static final String property_file_location = PropertyUtils.getProperty("app.vmargs.propertyfile", DEFAULT_FILE_LOCATION); 

However if those properties are not expected to exist all the time, I would suggest to not initialize them as static variables but read them during normal execution.

// in the place where you will first need the file location
String fileLocation = PropertyUtils.getProperty("app.vmargs.propertyfile");
if (fileLocation == null) {
    // handle the error here
}