Gets the property with the specified key in the property list.

• return: The value for the given key or null if not found
• access: public

• string $key: The key for this property

Reads a property list from a properties file.

The stream should have the following format:

An empty line or a line starting with # or ! is ignored. A backslash (\) at the end of the line makes the line continueing on the next line (but make sure there is no whitespace after the backslash). Otherwise, each line describes a key/value pair.

The chars up to the first whitespace, "=" or ":" are the key. You can include this caracters in the key, if you precede them with a backslash (\). The key is followed by optional whitespaces, optionally one = or :, and optionally some more whitespaces. The rest of the line is the resource belonging to the key.

Escape sequences \t, \n, \r, \\, \", \', \!, \#, \ (a space) are detected and converted to the corresponding single character.

 # This is a comment
 key     = value
 k\:5      \ a string starting with space and ending with newline\n
 # This is a multiline specification; note that the value contains
 # no white space.
 weekdays: Sunday,Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,\\
 Thursday,Friday,Saturday

• throws: PHRUTS_IOException
• access: public

• string $file: The properties file

Returns the number of properties

• access: public