posted 13 years ago
If you have a set of key-value pairs then HashMap is the obvious thing to use. If those pairs have to come from an external file where they live permanently, then Properties would be the thing to use, but it sounds like that isn't the case. So use HashMap.
If you use Properties then readers of your code are going to assume that your data comes from an external file, because that's what Properties is for. So if your data doesn't come from an external file, then don't use Properties or you are going to confuse people.