I have seen a number of places in the codebase where we take in system parameters. In some cases this is to control certain unit test options such as:

http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/cachestore/jdbc/src/test/java/org/infinispan/test/fwk/UnitTestDatabaseManager.java?r=1957#l53
http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/cachestore/cloud/src/integrationtest/java/org/infinispan/loaders/cloud/CloudCacheStoreFunctionalIntegrationTest.java?r=1845#l46
http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/core/src/test/java/org/infinispan/test/fwk/TransactionSetup.java?r=722#l46

And in some cases these control runtime options such as:

http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/core/src/main/java/org/infinispan/config/InfinispanConfiguration.java?r=1951#l362
http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/server/rest/src/main/scala/org/infinispan/rest/StartupListener.scala?r=1863#l33
http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/server/core/src/main/scala/org/infinispan/server/core/Main.scala?r=1954#l169

And we occasionally use Properties to configure certain bits, such as certain Hot Rod and Memcached server options:

http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/server/core/src/main/scala/org/infinispan/server/core/AbstractProtocolServer.scala?r=1898#l24

And even Hot Rod client configs.

http://fisheye.jboss.org/browse/Infinispan/trunk/client/hotrod-client/src/main/java/org/infinispan/client/hotrod/RemoteCacheManager.java?r=1999#l167

And here are some examples of what the keys to these properties are:

infinispan.jclouds.username
infinispan.jdbc
infinispan.tm
infinispan.config.schema
infinispan.server.rest.cfg
program.name
infinispan.server.host
infinispan.hotrod-client.servers-default

I would like to standardise on these a bit. It would (a) make it easier to document and (b) provide a greater level of consistency. So here is what I propose:

• All system and property keys start with "infinispan."
• Properties destined to control the way the test suite runs should have ".test."
• The next bit should be the relevant affected module. E.g., ".server.hotrod." or ".server.rest." or ".client.hotrod.", or ".server." for stuff that is common across all server endpoints.
• and the last bit could be descriptive to what the key controls. E.g., ".host".

So, from above, the examples would look like:

infinispan.test.cachestore.jclouds.username
infinispan.test.cachestore.jdbc.driver
infinispan.test.core.tm
infinispan.core.config.schema
infinispan.server.cfg
(program.name? Don't know what this is... )
infinispan.server.host
infinispan.client.hotrod.servers