When detecting operating system or environment characteristics, prefer direct access to system properties over external library dependencies for basic checks. Use System.getProperty("os.name") with regionMatches() for case-insensitive OS detection instead of relying on third-party utilities like Apache Commons Lang3’s SystemUtils.
This approach reduces external dependencies while maintaining equivalent functionality. The regionMatches() method provides robust, case-insensitive string matching that handles OS name variations effectively.
Example implementation:
// Instead of: SystemUtils.IS_OS_WINDOWS
boolean isWindows = System.getProperty("os.name").regionMatches(true, 0, "Windows", 0, 7);
// Instead of: SystemUtils.IS_OS_UNIX
String osName = System.getProperty("os.name");
String[] unixPrefixes = {"AIX", "HP-UX", "Linux", "Mac OS X", "Solaris", "FreeBSD"};
boolean isUnix = Arrays.stream(unixPrefixes)
.anyMatch(prefix -> osName.regionMatches(true, 0, prefix, 0, prefix.length()));
This pattern is particularly valuable when the external library is used minimally and the custom implementation can be easily maintained and tested.
Enter the URL of a public GitHub repository