default null value in Spring @value

default null value in Spring @Value

You must set the nullValue of the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer. For the example I'm using the string @null but you can also use the empty string as nullValue.

<bean id="propertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer">
    <!-- config the location(s) of the properties file(s) here -->
    <property name="nullValue" value="@null" />
</bean>
Now you can use the string @null to represent the null value

@Value("${stuff.value:@null}")
private String value;
Please note: The context name space doesn't support the null value at the moment. You can't use

<context:property-placeholder null-value="@null" ... />
Tested with Spring 3.1.1