Internal profile-specific properties override external non-profile-specific properties

[axtavt]

Consider the following external application.properties:

spring.profiles.active=dev
my.property=external

and the following src/main/resources/application-dev.properties:

my.property=internal

When running the application, my.property will resolve to internal, whereas documentation clearly states that it should not be so:

Spring Boot uses a very particular PropertySource order that is designed to allow sensible overriding of values, properties are considered in the the following order:
...
6. Application properties outside of your packaged jar (application.properties including YAML and profile variants).
7. Application properties packaged inside your jar (application.properties including YAML and profile variants).

[philwebb]

We might need some clarification in the reference docs as we're not really clear on how profiles effect the ordering. I think that this is actually expected behavior.

Profiles specific config takes precedence over the default config, so in this case the src/main/resources/application-dev.properties profile files will override the external application.properties. If you move my.property=external to an external application-dev.properties I believe that it will work.

@dsyer and @wilkinsona might have more input, but I'm somewhat reluctant to change the current behavior.

[dsyer]

That is indeed the expected and intended behaviour (so I am also reluctant to change it).

[philwebb]

We'll leave this as it is but try to improve the docs.

[zmitrok]

Oh I guess I am yet another one who hit this totally expected behavior expecting the opposite :)