public static final int getIntValue(Properties cfg,
    String key,
    int defValue) 
{
		String propValue = cfg.getProperty( key );
		return parseInt( propValue, defValue, "Unable to parse " + key + ": " + propValue );
}

Looks for a numeric value in the Properties, returning defValue if not found or if an empty string is found. When the key the value is found but not in valid format a standard error message is generated.

 public static final boolean parseBoolean(String value,
    String errorMsgOnParseFailure) 
{
		// avoiding Boolean.valueOf() to have more checks: makes it easy to spot wrong type in cfg.
		if ( value == null ) {
			throw new SearchException( errorMsgOnParseFailure );
		}
		else if ( "false".equalsIgnoreCase( value.trim() ) ) {
			return false;
		}
		else if ( "true".equalsIgnoreCase( value.trim() ) ) {
			return true;
		}
		else {
			throw new SearchException( errorMsgOnParseFailure );
		}
}

Parses a string to recognize exactly either "true" or "false".

 public static final int parseInt(String value,
    String errorMsgOnParseFailure) 
{
		if ( value == null ) {
			throw new SearchException( errorMsgOnParseFailure );
		}
		else {
			try {
				return Integer.parseInt( value.trim() );
			} catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
				throw new SearchException( errorMsgOnParseFailure, nfe );
			}
		}
}

Parses a String to get an int value.

 public static final int parseInt(String value,
    int defValue,
    String errorMsgOnParseFailure) 
{
		if ( StringHelper.isEmpty( value ) ) {
			return defValue;
		}
		else {
			return parseInt( value, errorMsgOnParseFailure );
		}
}

In case value is null or an empty string the defValue is returned