How to get a List collection of values from app.config in WPF?

Question

The following example fills the ItemsControl with a List of BackupDirectories which I get from code.

How can I change this so that I get the same information from the app.config file?

XAML:

code-behind:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows;
using System.Configuration;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace TestReadMultipler2343
{
    public partial class Window1 : Window, INotifyPropertyChanged
    {

        #region ViewModelProperty: Title
        private string _title;
        public string Title
        {
            get
            {
                return _title;
            }

            set
            {
                _title = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Title");
            }
        }
        #endregion

        #region ViewModelProperty: BackupDirectories
        private List _backupDirectories = new List();
        public List BackupDirectories
        {
            get
            {
                return _backupDirectories;
            }

            set
            {
                _backupDirectories = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("BackupDirectories");
            }
        }
        #endregion

        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = this;

            Title = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("title");

            GetBackupDirectoriesInternal();
        }

        void GetBackupDirectoriesInternal()
        {
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:	est1");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:	est2");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:	est3");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:	est4");
        }

        void GetBackupDirectoriesFromConfig()
        {
            //BackupDirectories = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.GetValues("backupDirectories");
        }


        #region INotifiedProperty Block
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        protected void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;

            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
            }
        }
        #endregion

    }
}

app.config:

user_3850405 · Answer

Found this thread when searching for how to get a list from appsettings.json.

{
  "foo": {
    "bar": [
      "1",
      "2",
      "3"
    ]
  }
}

There you can do it like this:

Configuration.GetSection("foo:bar").Get>()

Source:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/42296371/3850405

user_2431005 · Answer

Thank for the question. But I have found my own solution to this problem. At first, I created a method

    public T GetSettingsWithDictionary() where T:new()
    {
        IConfigurationRoot _configurationRoot = new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .AddXmlFile($"{Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location}.config", false, true).Build();

        var instance = new T();
        foreach (var property in typeof(T).GetProperties())
        {
            if (property.PropertyType == typeof(Dictionary))
            {
                property.SetValue(instance, _configurationRoot.GetSection(typeof(T).Name).Get>());
                break;
            }

        }
        return instance;
    }

Then I used this method to produce an instance of a class

var connStrs = GetSettingsWithDictionary();

I have the next declaration of class

public class AuthMongoConnectionStrings
{
    public Dictionary ConnectionStrings { get; set; }
}

and I store my setting in App.config

How to get a List<string> collection of values from app.config in WPF?

8 Answers