Simple way templating multiline strings in java code

Question

I'm often run in to the following situation: I have long multiline strings where properties must be injected - e.g. something like templating. But I don't want to inlcude a complete templating engine (like velocity or freemarker) in my projects.

How can this be done in a simple way:

String title = "Princess";
String name  = "Luna";
String community = "Stackoverflow";

String text =
   "Dear " + title + " " + name + "!\n" +  
   "This is a question to " + community + "-Community\n" + 
   "for simple approach how to code with Java multiline Strings?\n" + 
   "Like this one.\n" + 
   "But it must be simple approach without using of Template-Engine-Frameworks!\n" + 
   "\n" + 
   "Thx for ..."; 

Answer 1

You can create your own small & simply template engine with few lines of code:

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

    String title = "Princes";
    String name  = "Luna";
    String community = "Stackoverflow";

    InputStream stream = DemoMailCreater.class.getResourceAsStream("demo.mail");


    byte[] buffer = new byte[stream.available()];
    stream.read(buffer);

    String text = new String(buffer);

    text = text.replaceAll("§TITLE§", title);
    text = text.replaceAll("§NAME§", name);
    text = text.replaceAll("§COMMUNITY§", community);

    System.out.println(text);

}

and small text file e.g. in the same folder (package) demo.mail:

Dear §TITLE§ §NAME§!
This is a question to §COMMUNITY§-Community
for simple approach how to code with Java multiline Strings? 
Like this one.
But it must be simple approach without using of Template-Engine-Frameworks!

Thx for ...