question: private Properties loadPropertiesFromExternalFile ( String filePath , Properties fallback ) { Properties properties = new Properties ( fallback ) ; try { FileInputStream propertyFileStream = new FileInputStream ( filePath ) ; properties . load ( propertyFileStream ) ; return properties ; } catch ( NullPointerException e ) { return fallback ; } catch ( FileNotFoundException e ) { return fallback ; } catch ( IOException e ) { return fallback ; } }
target:  Loads properties from a external file. If the file does not exist, we return the fallback.