I apologize as this question is somewhat basic; however, after a great deal of searching, I have not found a suitable answer. I am building a windows forms application and need to reference an app.config file for the location to a data file. Before calling
XElement xml = XElement.Load(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["EntityData"].ToString());
I want to ensure that the app.config file exists. I have tried multiple methods but it seems that it is a lot more work then it should be. For example I have been trying to use the following code to determine the path for the file
Uri uri = new Uri(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase);
string fullConfigurationFilename = System.IO.Path.Combine(System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(uri.AbsolutePath), configurationFilename);
but I run into issues with spaces in the path. Is there a better way to check for the existence of the app.config, do I even need to check?
Thank you
I don't think you need to verify that the config file exists. The following code should work without exceptions:
string temp = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["EntityData"];
if (temp != null)
{
XElement xml = XElement.Load(temp);
}
Note that AppSettings will return a string if the key is found, so you don't need to call ToString to convert it. If the key does not exist, you should instead get a null reference that you can test for.
System.Configuration should do all of this work for you. There shouldn't be a need to manually load a config file.
Related
After a lot of searching on the internet without any success, I'm looking here for some help.
The problem seems to be quiet simple, but unfortunately I'm not able to solve it.
I want to change the default-application to open .txt-files. For example instead of using notepad I want to use Wordpad which is located at C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe
So I've tried to change the registry at: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\OpenWithProgids with no success.
I've also found a solution which tries to change the group policy. This code looks like:
string tempFile = Path.GetTempFileName();
string xmlFile = tempFile.Replace(".tmp", ".xml");
File.Move(tempFile, xmlFile);
XDocument document = new XDocument(new XElement("DefaultAssociations",
new XElement("Association",
new XAttribute("Identifier", ".txt"),
new XAttribute("ProgId", "txtFile"),
new XAttribute("ApplicationName", "Editor"))));
document.Save(xmlFile);
ComputerGroupPolicyObject.SetPolicySetting(#"HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System!DefaultAssociationsConfiguration",
xmlFile, RegistryValueKind.String);
But this also doesn't work.
I also tried to use the command-line with ftype but that also didn't work.
Can anybody tell me how to change the assoziated application for a given filetype?
I guess you want to this because you have some kind of Set as default option in your program, by the way I have spent the last hour trying to figure out why it doesn't work and here it is what I've found so far.
The step you need to take are the following:
Creates a registry key in ClassesRoot for the .custom extension.
(Period is important)
Code:
Registry.ClassesRoot.CreateSubKey(".custom").SetValue("", "customfile", Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.String);`
Creating the "Customfile" sub-key and the "customfile\open\command"
subkey that is needed to store the path to the application that will
open this file type.
Code:
Registry.ClassesRoot.CreateSubKey("Customfile\shell\open\command").SetValue("", PATH_TO_YOUR_EXE, Microsoft.Win32.RegistryValueKind.String);
And now the association has been made, your app will be registered as one of those which can open that extention.
The case of .txt (or other already associated extentions)
After messing a little bit around i found out that in order to do changes to an already associated extention you also need to edit the registry
Example (with .txt ext.)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.txt\UserChoice
This key has an ProgId value which actually contains the default application set by the user, the value is a string. So you will also have do edit/delete this Registry as well.
I hope it helps :)!
I am wondering how to remove the version number from a file path in a Windows Form Application.
Currently I wish to save some users application data to a .xml file located in the roaming user profile settings.
To do this I use:
get
{
return Application.UserAppDataPath + "\\FileName.xml";
}
However this returns the following string:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\folder\subfolder\1.0.0.0\FileName.xml
and I was wondering if there is a non-hack way to remove the version number from the file path so the file path looks like this:
C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming\folder\subfolder\FileName.xml
Besides parsing the string looking for the last "\", I do not know what to do.
Thanks
Use Directory.GetParent method for this purpose.
get
{
var dir = Directory.GetParent(Application.UserAppDataPath);
return Path.Combine(dir.FullName, "FileName.xml");
}
Also note that I've used Path.Combine instead of concatenating paths, this method helps you to avoid so many problems. Never concatenate strings to create path.
This is a C# .NET 4.0 application:
I'm embedding a text file as a resource and then trying to display it in a dialog box:
var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
var resourceName = "MyProj.Help.txt";
using (Stream stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName))
{
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
string result = reader.ReadToEnd();
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(result, "MyProj", MessageBoxButtons.OK);
}
}
The solution is MyProjSolution and the executable is MyProj.exe. Help.txt is an embedded resource. However, the stream is null. I've tried MyProjSolution.Help.txt and MyProjSolution.MyProj.Help.txt but nothing seems to work.
You can check that the resources are correctly embedded by using
//From the assembly where this code lives!
this.GetType().Assembly.GetManifestResourceNames()
//or from the entry point to the application - there is a difference!
Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceNames()
when debugging. This will list all the (fully qualified) names of all resources embedded in the assembly your code is written in.
See Assembly.GetManifestResourceNames() on MSDN.
Simply copy the relevant name, and use that instead of whatever you have defined in the variable 'resourceName'.
Notes - the resource name is case sensitive, and if you have incorrectly embedded the resource file, it will not show up in the list returned by the call to GetManifestResourceNames(). Also - make sure you are reading the resource from the correct assembly (if multiple assemblies are used) - it's all too easy to get the resources from the currently executing assembly rather than from a referenced assembly.
EDIT - .NET Core
Please see this SO post for details on how to embed using .NET Core.
Retrieving the manifest info looks to be similar - just use this.GetType().GetTypeInfo().Assembly.GetManifestResourceNames() to get the a manifest from the assembly where the code is executing.
I haven't figured out how to do the equivalent of Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly() in .NET Core yet! if anyone knows - please let me know and I will update this answer.
I had a similar issue check first that the file is included in your project , then go to properties and set the build action of that file to Embedded Resource . this worked for me .
The embedded file's "Build Action" property should be set as "Embedded Resource" to run the line, which is given below, properly:
Stream stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(resourceName)
Right click on the file, click the property and then set "Build Action" property as "Embedded Resource":
Here is the cause of my null value.
http://adrianmejia.com/blog/2011/07/18/cs-getmanifestresourcestream-gotcha/
The GetManifestResourceStream method will always returns NULL if the resource ‘built action‘ property is not set to ‘embedded resource‘
After setting this property with all the needed files assembly.GetManifestResourceStream starts returning the correct stream instead of NULL.
Just a warning.
I could not access my file as an embedded resource even though I specified that it was and even though it had that Build Action property. Wasted a lot of time banging my head. I embedded a csharp code file with .txt appended to its name (xxx.cs.txt). For some reason the GetManifestResourceNames() and GetManifestResourceStream() methods won't see a file with .cs in its name.
I renamed it simply xxx.txt and everything was fine.
Weird.
In my case the problem was that the code looking for the resource was in a different project that the resource itself.
You can only access resources that are in the same project the code is. I thought I could put all my resources in the web page project, but I need images in the mail project too.
Hope this helps someone in the same situation I was.
I find really useful calling Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceNames();.
I had the same problem, thanks to Jay I found it was hyphens in the directory name.
ProjectName.ResourceFolder.Sub-Directory becomes ProjectName.ResourceFolder.Sub_Directory when you reference the resource stream.
A simple and streamlined solution is to have this base class:
public class EmbededResourceReader
{
protected string LoadString(string fileName)
{
return LoadString(fileName, Encoding.UTF8);
}
protected string LoadString(string fileName, Encoding encoding)
{
var assembly = this.GetType().Assembly;
var resourceStream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream($"{this.GetType().Namespace}.{fileName}");
using (var reader = new StreamReader(resourceStream, encoding))
{
return reader.ReadToEnd();
}
}
}
Then, when you add a resource, you create a reader C# class in the same folder:
where the reader class MyResource.cs is very simple:
public class MyResource : EmbededResourceReader
{
public string LoadString() => LoadString($"{nameof(MyResource)}.txt");
}
So, each resource will have a "shadow" class that knows how to read it properly.
This is how you read the resource in your code:
var text = new MyResource().LoadString();
And as other answers suggested, do not forget to set "Embedded Resource" in the Build Action property of the resource file.
The advantage of this uniform solution is
less hassle with finding correct full name of the resource, especially when placed in nested folders
in case when folder is renamed OR Default Namespace in project settings is changed, the code will NOT break
In case it helps anyone else, Make sure Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly() line is called from same assembly which has embedded resources.
First Unload the project and click on edit the project file.
Inside the project file make sure that the item you are fetching from the assembly is included inside <EmbeddedResource> tag.
Eg:
<ItemGroup>
<EmbeddedResource Include="Template\ForExampleFile.html" />
</ItemGroup>
The files I added into the project were just in Content tag but not in the EmbeddedResource as shown below by default. Hence the stream was returning null.
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="Template\ForExampleFile.html" />
</ItemGroup>
You need to unload your solution.Then edit project.Afterfind your folder and change like this:
<EmbeddedResource Include="yourpath" />
Although OP got GetManifestResourceStream returning NULL from resources in the same Assembly, some Answers suggested that when Resources are in another Project or Assembly they cannot be retrieved, and are a fair cause of GetManifestResourceStream returning NULL.
This is not true, at least since 2011; as I pointed in some comments elsewhere, Assembly.LoadFrom() or typeof do the trick and as a result you can access resources that are in another project.
I have a moderately complex example here to illustrate; this is my test setup:
Path to another project:
Captured here:
var sharedXMLResource =
"D:\\My Documents\\Consultório Impressos\\DB Pacientes\\Teste\\TestesVariados\\WinFormFramework\\Read_Embedded_XML_File_CS\\bin\\Debug\\Read_Embedded_XML_File_CS.exe";
And on Form1.cs from WinFormFramework I specify with
Namespace.Folder.Resource
like that:
StreamReader reader =
new StreamReader(Assembly.LoadFrom(sharedXMLResource).GetManifestResourceStream("Read_Embedded_XML_File_CS.SharedResources.ContactList.xml") ?? throw new InvalidOperationException());
And the result displayed at textbox:
I spent several hours to get it right; for that, I had to use a lot these at Immediate Window:
Environment.CurrentDirectory
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(WinFormFramework.Program)).Location
Hope it helps someone
I know this is an old question, however, I stumbled through this and with the help of #Jay answer I was able to get this working.
I had to use the full filename to get this to work.
using var stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("Project.Folder.appsettings.json");
You probably need to specify the path to your txt file in the GetManifestResourceStream parameter, or you could try sticking the txt file in the same directory as your executable. Hope that helps!
So I have been poking around both here on SO and google for the last few days for information about app.config.
I am writing a program that will need to generate SQL scripts using values entered by a user. Originally I was using app.config to store some default values to load into the program when it is first started up. This worked fine until I tried to store the new values back into the app.config file. This is when I found that app.config is read only and I should have been using user.config.
I have several questions that I can't seem to find the answers to:
Is it recommended to use settings.Setting to declare all the values that I want to use app.config? Or is entering them in by hand is enough?
I keep reading about how user.config overrides app.config settings. But when I update my user.config file, the program still reads from the original app.config file
This is from my wrapper class
public NameValueCollection ReadSettings(string sectionName)
{
NameValueCollection scripts = null;
try
{
//read in the current values from the section
scripts = (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection(sectionName);
if (scripts == null) throw new appConfigException(String.Format("The section {0} does not exists in app.config", sectionName));
}catch (Exception e){
//print out the log file
StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(DateTime.Now.ToString("d-MMM-yyyy") + "log.txt");
writer.WriteLine(e.ToString());
writer.Close();
//kill the application process so the user cannot advance further
System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().Kill();
}
return scripts;
}
is the ConfigurationManager supposed to automatically know to start reading from the user.config? Or do I need to change this section of code to reflect that?
Question 1: It is easier to use Settings.settings instead of creating your own configuration file yourApp.config. Because using the first option you can access your properties just using Properties.Settings.Default.MyProperty and with the app.config file instead you have to deal with ConfigurationManager object, and usually to access a property you need to know the name beforehand and it usually is hardcoded.
Question 2: Yes, you are right the app.config is different from Settings.setting. Because you could even create a new file temp.config which could also be used as a config file for your application.
Final question: Im not sure, but I don't think ConfigurationManager knows anything about that, just parse the app.config file.
Hope it helps.
I am using .NET 4.0 and I would like to use the app.config file to store same parameter settings. I do the following. I use the Settings tab in the project properties to create my parameters.
This add the information in the app.config file like this:
<MyApp.Properties.Settings>
<setting name="param1" serializeAs="String">
<value>True</value>
</setting>
<MyApp.Properties.Settings>
In my view model (in my code) I can access to the information in this way:
bool myBool = MyApp.Properties.Default.param1;
When I try to change the value in the config file, I try this:
Properties.Settings.Default.param1 = false;
But this causes an error, that param1 is read-only.
So how can I update my config file from my code?
Here's my function to update or add an entry into the app.config for "applicationSettings" section. There might be a better way, but this works for me. If anyone can suggest a better method please share it, we'll always looking for something better.
static string APPNODE = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Name + ".Properties.Settings";
static DateTime now = DateTime.Now;
Utilities.UpdateConfig(APPNODE, "lastQueryTime", now.ToString());
static public void UpdateConfig(string section, string key, string value)
{
Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
ClientSettingsSection applicationSettingsSection = (ClientSettingsSection)config.SectionGroups["applicationSettings"].Sections[section];
SettingElement element = applicationSettingsSection.Settings.Get(key);
if (null != element)
{
applicationSettingsSection.Settings.Remove(element);
element.Value.ValueXml.InnerXml = value;
applicationSettingsSection.Settings.Add(element);
}
else
{
element = new SettingElement(key, SettingsSerializeAs.String);
element.Value = new SettingValueElement();
System.Xml.XmlDocument doc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
element.Value.ValueXml = doc.CreateElement("value");
element.Value.ValueXml.InnerXml = value;
applicationSettingsSection.Settings.Add(element);
}
config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified);
ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("applicationSettings");
}
Well, I read the link of Hari Gillala, in which one user suggested to edit directly the app.config file, that is a xml file.
So in project properties-->settings I create the parameters that I need. Then, to load a parameter in code I do the following:
_myViewModelProperty = MyApp.Properties.Settings.Default.MyParam1;
In this way, I can read easily the information of the config parameter. Is typed, so in disign time I can see if the asign is correct or not.
To update de config file, I edit the app.config file with the xml libraries of .NET.
System.Xml.XmlDocument xml = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
xml.Load(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ConfigurationFile);
System.Xml.XmlNode node;
node = xml.SelectSingleNode("configuration/applicationSettings/MyApp.Properties.Settings/setting[#name='myparam1']");
node.ChildNodes[0].InnerText = myNewValue;
xml.Save(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ConfigurationFile);
In this way, I create a xml document (xml variable) and load the information of the app.config file. Then, I search for the node that I want to update, update its information (InnerText property) and finally I save the changes.
In this way, I can update the app.config. It is what I want, because in a portable application, only one user will use it, and I want that the configuration is applied in any computer in which I run the application.
You should use Properties.Settings to perform this action.
You can look at this documentation for more information.
//modify
Properties.Settings.Default.param1 = false;
//save the setting
Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
Note that if your settings have the Scope of User, which they must be to be writeable, then the properties are saved somewhere else and not in your local config file. See here for the details.
EDIT after discussion in comment and further searches:
My suggestion to achieve the desired result would be to switch to AppSettings.
That is because, after some searches, i found out that appsettings changes the .config file in the Application Data folder (running some tests on my machine confirm that).
Look at comment in the answer to this question .
I am not sure if there is some work around, but if you want your application to have a portable app.config file, i think the only way is to switch to AppSettings which i'm sure can save changes in the app.config found in the program folder.
EDIT 2: Possible solution
I found out a possible solution to make your app portable!
You can change the Provider used by Settings to save the application's settings creating a custom Provider.
The answer to this question provide a link to a code to make applicationsettings portable. I think you give it a try
Mark your setting as usersetting.
Detailed article: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/25829/User-Settings-Applied