The difference between equals and colons in Java properties files

In spring, you can use different property files to configure messages, so they are often like this:

message.key=text here
another.message.key=another text here

But today I saw in a project that it was using this format:

message.key:text here
another.message.key:another text here

I think this applies to any Java properties file, but what's the difference?

Solution

If you're really talking about standard Java property files, there's no difference between colons and equals You can separate keys from their values In fact, if you want to annoy readers, you can even mix them in the same file