Simplest way to have a configuration file in a Windows Forms C application

Question

I m really new to  NET  and I still didn t get the hang about how configuration files work   Every time I search on Google about it I get results about web config  but I m writing a Windows Forms application   I figured out that I need to use the System Configuration namespace  but the documentation isn t helping   How do I define that my configuration file is XYZ xml  Or does it have a  default  name for the configuration file  I still didn t get that   Also  how do I define a new section  Do I really need to create a class which inherits from ConfigurationSection   I would like to just have a configuration file with some values like this    lt MyCustomValue gt 1 lt  MyCustomValue gt   lt MyCustomPath gt C  Some Path Here lt  MyCustomPath gt    Is there a simple way to do it  Can you explain in a simple way how to read and write from to a simple configuration file

User · Answer

Use   System Configuration ConfigurationSettings AppSettings  MyKey      AppSettings has been deprecated and is now considered obsolete  link    In addition  the appSettings section of the app config has been replaced by the applicationSettings section   As someone else mentioned  you should be using System Configuration ConfigurationManager  link  which is new for  NET 2 0

User · Answer

The default name for a configuration file is  yourexe  exe config  So notepad exe will have a configuration file named notepad exe config  in the same folder as the program  This is a general configuration file for all aspects of the CLR and Framework  but it can contain your own settings under an  lt appSettings gt  node   The  lt appSettings gt  element creates a collection of name-value pairs which can be accessed as System Configuration ConfigurationSettings AppSettings  There is no way to save changes back to the configuration file  however   It is also possible to add your own custom elements to a configuration file - for example  to define a structured setting - by creating a class that implements IConfigurationSectionHandler and adding it to the  lt configSections gt  element of the configuration file  You can then access it by calling ConfigurationSettings GetConfig    NET 2 0 adds a new class  System Configuration ConfigurationManager  which supports multiple files  with per-user overrides of per-system data  It also supports saving modified configurations back to settings files   Visual Studio creates a file called App config  which it copies to the EXE folder  with the correct name  when the project is built

User · Answer

Use   System Configuration ConfigurationSettings AppSettings  MyKey      AppSettings has been deprecated and is now considered obsolete  link    In addition  the appSettings section of the app config has been replaced by the applicationSettings section   As someone else mentioned  you should be using System Configuration ConfigurationManager  link  which is new for  NET 2 0

User · Answer

What version of  NET and Visual nbsp Studio are you using   When you created the new project  you should have a file in your solution called app config  That is the default configuration file

User · Answer

Clarification of previous answers      Add a new file to your project  Add  rarr  New Item  rarr  Application Configuration File  The new configuration file will appear in Solution Explorer as App Config  Add your settings into this file using the following as a template   lt configuration gt     lt appSettings gt       lt add key  setting1  value  key   gt     lt  appSettings gt     lt connectionStrings gt       lt add name  prod  connectionString  YourConnectionString   gt     lt  connectionStrings gt   lt  configuration gt   Retrieve them like this   private void Form1 Load object sender  EventArgs e        string setting   ConfigurationManager AppSettings  setting1        string conn   ConfigurationManager ConnectionStrings  prod   ConnectionString     When built  your output folder will contain a file called  lt assemblyname gt  exe config  This will be a copy of the App Config file  No further work should need to be done by the developer to create this file

User · Answer

You want to use an App Config   When you add a new item to a project there is something called Applications Configuration file  Add that   Then you add keys in the configuration appsettings section  Like    lt configuration gt    lt appSettings gt     lt add key  MyKey  value  false   gt    Access the members by doing  System Configuration ConfigurationSettings AppSettings  MyKey      This works in  NET 2 and above

User · Answer

I agree with the other answers that point you to app config  However  rather than reading values directly from app config  you should create a utility class  AppSettings is the name I use  to read them and expose them as properties  The AppSettings class can be used to aggregate settings from several stores  such as values from app config and application version info from the assembly  AssemblyVersion and AssemblyFileVersion

User · Answer

In Windows Forms  you have the app config file  which is very similar to the web config file  But since what I see you need it for are custom values  I suggest using Settings   To do that  open your project properties  and then go to settings  If a settings file does not exist you will have a link to create one  Then  you can add the settings to the table you see there  which would generate both the appropriate XML  and a Settings class that can be used to load and save the settings   The settings class will be named something like DefaultNamespace Properties Settings  Then  you can use code similar to   using DefaultNamespace Properties   namespace DefaultNamespace       class Class           public int LoadMySettingValue                 return Settings Default MySettingValue                    public void SaveMySettingValue int value                Settings Default MySettingValue   value

User · Answer

From a quick read of the previous answers  they look correct  but it doesn t look like anyone mentioned the new configuration facilities in Visual nbsp Studio nbsp 2008  It still uses app config  copied at compile time to YourAppName exe config   but there is a UI widget to set properties and specify  their types  Double-click Settings settings in your project s  Properties  folder   The best part is that accessing this property from code is typesafe - the compiler will catch obvious mistakes like mistyping the property name   For example  a property called MyConnectionString in app config would be accessed like   string s   Properties Settings Default MyConnectionString

User · Answer

A very simple way of doing this is to use your your own custom Settings class

User · Answer

You should create an App config file  very similar to web config    You should right click on your project  add new item  and choose new  Application Configuration File    Ensure that you add using System Configuration in your project   Then you can add values to it    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8    gt   lt configuration gt     lt appSettings gt       lt add key  setting1  value  key   gt     lt  appSettings gt     lt connectionStrings gt       lt add name  prod  connectionString  YourConnectionString   gt     lt  connectionStrings gt   lt  configuration gt          private void Form1 Load object sender  EventArgs e                string setting   ConfigurationManager AppSettings  setting1            string conn   ConfigurationManager ConnectionStrings  prod   ConnectionString            Just a note  According to Microsoft  you should use ConfigurationManager instead of ConfigurationSettings  see the remarks section        The ConfigurationSettings class provides backward compatibility only  For new applications you should use the ConfigurationManager class or WebConfigurationManager class instead

User · Answer

The best  IMHO  article about  NET Application configuration is on CodeProject  Unraveling the Mysteries of  NET 2 0 Configuration  And my next favorite  shorter  article about sections in the  NET  configuration files is Understanding Section Handlers - App config File

[.net] Simplest way to have a configuration file in a Windows Forms C# application

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