Using a configuration file

A common way to configure Detect is to use a configuration file. The configuration file can be either a Java properties (.properties) file or a YAML (.yml) file.

Note: Configuration files support all properties; only the formatting, as noted below, changes based on the type of configuration file used. See [All Properties](../properties/all-properties.md).

Spring Boot looks for a configuration file named application.properties or application.yml in the current working directory or in the ./config subdirectory. If a configuration file is found, Spring Boot reads its property values.

For example, if you want to set the detect.project.name property using a configuration (.properties) file, you can do so as follows:

echo "detect.project.name=myproject" > application.properties
bash <(curl -s -L https://detect.blackduck.com/detect12.sh) --detect.source.path=/opt/projects/project1

Because the configuration file has one of the file names that Spring looks for by default (in this case, application.properties) and exists in one of the locations that Spring looks in by default (in this case, the current directory), there is no need to specify the path to the configuration file on the command line.

Additional details can be found in the Spring Boot documentation.

Properties file

When setting a property value in a .properties file, do not prefix the property name with hyphens. Follow Java .properties file syntax: propertyName=propertyValue, with one property per line.

YAML file

When setting a property value in a .yml file, do not prefix the property name with hyphens. Follow YAML dictionary syntax: propertyName: propertyValue, with one property per line.

The Detect command line help option -hyaml can be used to generate a template YAML configuration file.

Running Detect from a directory that contains a file named config

If the directory from which you run Detect contains a file named config, you must override the default value of the Spring Boot property spring.config.location.

By default, Spring Boot may attempt to use config as a configuration directory. If config is a file instead of a directory, this can prevent Detect from starting correctly.

Set spring.config.location according to whether you use a Spring Boot configuration file.

If you use a Spring Boot configuration file, such as application.properties or application.yml, set spring.config.location to one of the following:

The directory containing the configuration file. Include a trailing slash (/) to indicate that the location is a directory.
The path to the configuration file itself.

If you do not use a Spring Boot configuration file, set spring.config.location to an empty string:

--spring.config.location=""