Settings include optional not working with absolute file paths

[Rob Gordon]

Hi, I’m trying to allow a user defined settings file to override the default 
one if it exists

<include file="${ivy.default.ivy.user.dir}/ivysettings.xml"
       optional="true" />
But I'm getting:

Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\Users\rob\.ivy2\ivysettings.xml
   at 
org.apache.ivy.core.settings.XmlSettingsParser.urlFromFileAttribute(XmlSettingsParser.java:457)
   at 
org.apache.ivy.core.settings.XmlSettingsParser.includeStarted(XmlSettingsParser.java:415)
   at 
org.apache.ivy.core.settings.XmlSettingsParser.startElement(XmlSettingsParser.java:211)
   ... 39 more

I think the problem is in the XmlSettingsParser urlFromFileAttrubte method 
in that it does a file exists check for absolute files:

if (incFile.isAbsolute()) {
   if (!incFile.exists()) {
       throw new FileNotFoundException(incFile.getAbsolutePath());
   }


but this happens before the optional check in the calling code:

settingsURL = urlFromFileAttribute(propFilePath);
Message.verbose("including file: " + settingsURL);
if ("file".equals(settingsURL.getProtocol())) {
   try {
       File settingsFile = new File(new URI(settingsURL.toExternalForm()));
       String optional = (String) attributes.get("optional");
       if ("true".equals(optional) && !settingsFile.exists()) {
           return;
       }

So I'm guessing this is a bug...

Please can you advise a workaround, or is there an alternative recommended 
way for having an optional user settings file?

Many thanks,
Rob