Properties Special Character Escaping in JSON Conversion

Special Character Escaping

In .properties files, certain characters have special meaning and must be escaped with a backslash when used in keys or values:

Character	Escape	Meaning
=	\=	Key-value separator
:	\:	Key-value separator
#	\#	Comment prefix
!	\!	Comment prefix
\\	\\\\	Literal backslash
Space	\\	Space in key (leading)
\n	\\n	Newline in value
\t	\\t	Tab in value

Example with Escaped Characters

# Keys with special characters
url\=pattern=https://example.com?key\=value
path\:windows=C\:\\Users\\admin
equation=2 + 2 \= 4
message.greeting=Hello\nWorld\tWelcome\!

# Key with spaces
my\ key\ with\ spaces=my value

# Value with hash
color.code=\#FF5733
css.selector=.class\#id

JSON Output

{
  "url=pattern": "https://example.com?key=value",
  "path:windows": "C:\\Users\\admin",
  "equation": "2 + 2 = 4",
  "message": {
    "greeting": "Hello\nWorld\tWelcome!"
  },
  "my key with spaces": "my value",
  "color": {
    "code": "#FF5733"
  },
  "css": {
    "selector": ".class#id"
  }
}

Important Notes

• Escaped separators in keys (\=, \:) prevent the character from being treated as a key-value delimiter
• Escaped comment characters (\#, \!) in values prevent them from being treated as comment starters
• Newline (\n) and tab (\t) escapes are converted to their actual characters
• A double backslash (\\\\) becomes a single backslash in the output