diff --git a/docs/pages/release_notes.md b/docs/pages/release_notes.md
index 1b2450a8e2..3d9505e6a4 100644
--- a/docs/pages/release_notes.md
+++ b/docs/pages/release_notes.md
@@ -169,6 +169,7 @@ All existing rules have been updated to reflect these changes. If you have custo
 *   java-comments
     *   [#536](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/536): \[java] CommentDefaultAccessModifierRule ignores constructors
 *   java-controversial
+    *   [#388](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/388): \[java] controversial.AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition 0.0 false positive
     *   [#408](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/408): \[java] DFA not analyzing asserts
     *   [#537](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/issues/537): \[java] UnnecessaryParentheses fails to detect obvious scenario
 *   java-design
@@ -288,3 +289,4 @@ All existing rules have been updated to reflect these changes. If you have custo
 *   [#583](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/583): \[java] Documentation about writing metrics - [Clément Fournier](https://github.com/oowekyala)
 *   [#585](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/585): \[java] Moved NcssCountRule to codesize.xml - [Clément Fournier](https://github.com/oowekyala)
 *   [#588](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/588): \[java] XPath function to compute metrics - [Clément Fournier](https://github.com/oowekyala)
+*   [#598](https://github.com/pmd/pmd/pull/598): \[java] Fix #388: controversial.AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition 0.0 false positive - [Clément Fournier](https://github.com/oowekyala)
diff --git a/pmd-java/src/main/resources/rulesets/java/controversial.xml b/pmd-java/src/main/resources/rulesets/java/controversial.xml
index 779217c9f0..5c59d8f486 100644
--- a/pmd-java/src/main/resources/rulesets/java/controversial.xml
+++ b/pmd-java/src/main/resources/rulesets/java/controversial.xml
@@ -681,7 +681,7 @@ More exceptions can be defined with the property "ignoreMagicNumbers".
 //IfStatement/Expression/*/PrimaryExpression/PrimaryPrefix/Literal
 [not(NullLiteral)]
 [not(BooleanLiteral)]
-[empty(index-of(tokenize($ignoreMagicNumbers, ','), @Image))]
+[empty(index-of(tokenize($ignoreMagicNumbers, '\s*,\s*'), @Image))]
 ]]>
         </value>
       </property>
diff --git a/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/controversial/xml/AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition.xml b/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/controversial/xml/AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition.xml
index 57a5ab6798..9da329bc6d 100644
--- a/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/controversial/xml/AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition.xml
+++ b/pmd-java/src/test/resources/net/sourceforge/pmd/lang/java/rule/controversial/xml/AvoidLiteralsInIfCondition.xml
@@ -74,4 +74,19 @@ public class Foo {
 }
       ]]></code>
   </test-code>
+  <test-code>
+    <description>#388 False positive due to space in property list</description>
+    <expected-problems>0</expected-problems>
+    <rule-property name="ignoreMagicNumbers"><![CDATA[-1,0,1, 0.0]]></rule-property>
+    <code><![CDATA[
+    class Foo {
+      void bar() {
+        if (num == 0.0) {
+	        return MathExtItg.sgn0raw(num) == 1 ? IEEEclass.PositiveZero : IEEEclass.NegativeZero;
+	      }
+      }
+    }
+    ]]></code>
+  </test-code>
+
 </test-data>