added skeleton methods to get or set appcontroller variables
adding test cases for get_property
wrote implementation to get and set properties, and added new tests for setting properties
refactored setting properties, and added logging throughout
merged with org/master
catching cases when callers provide an invalid regex when retrieving properties
Merge pull request #801 from shatterednirvana/get-and-set-appcontroller-vars

Enable users to query and set AppController instance variables