convenience getXXX() with default about config

[viktorklang]

Never, never, never put defaults in code. That's the entire idea with the Typesafe Config library. So huge 👎 on this. Put your defaults in a reference.conf.

[havocp]

See issue #14. Just check out the example app and library in the source tree (https://github.com/typesafehub/config/tree/master/examples) to see the suggested way to do it (reference.conf). But if you for some reason don't want an external file, you still should not use the hasPath pattern; instead, create a Config object that contains all your defaults, put that config object in one place, and then when you load config do "loaded.withFallback(myDefaults)" to get the final config. Then you don't need hasPath because you know you've forced the settings to exist. The bottom line is, add defaults to and validate your config up-front when you load it, throw exceptions or do fixups at that central load location, then pass around an already-validated known-good config.

The time to use hasPath is if null/missing is actually meaningful rather than a screwup or missing default. For example if an unset password means "don't use a password" then you need to do a hasPath in that case.

[havocp]

to be completist for the archives, the other reason not to support these "with default" overloads is that there are a lot of them (1 getFoo and 1 getFooList per type). so since there's already a way to specify defaults in code (withFallback) it doesn't seem worth adding all that. also, when wrapping the API in Scala several people have made these return Option which is not what I'd suggest for the same reason.

wow, guys, you've got some religion going on here! :-)

come on, I was merely checking if you are still around - the previous 3 requests got no reaction from you :-)

apart from that - fine, I am now a new convert and an adept of the church of the saint havoc,
and will faithfully practice my default config files every morning and night;

cheers!