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c#winformsconfigurationmanager

Changing the data type of a setting in Settings.settings

EDIT

I've changed my use of the setting from

private int _Capacity = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FuelTankCapacity"];

to...

private int _Capacity = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FuelTankCapacity"]);

This solved the problem, however it feels like a lazy fix. There has to be a way to specify an integer type for settings, hasn't there?

ORIGINAL QUESTION

Having created a few settings in my winforms application, I'm having some trouble with one of them.

The setting is meant to specify the maximum capacity of a fuel tank, the value being 2000 (2000 liters).

Unfortunately, the setting is being read as a string value instead of an int even though I specified it should be an integer value.

Here's the App.config code for this setting:

<setting name="FuelTankCapacity" serializeAs="String">
    <value>2000</value>
</setting>

Note that changing the SerializeAs value to int/Int32 doesn't fix the problem. Here's the Settings.settings screen

Solution

  • I guess the problem is that AppSettings is of type NameValueCollection which is according to MSDN

    a collection of associated String keys and String values that can be accessed either with the key or with the index.

    So taking this route you end up inevitably with a string.

    Using the Property namespace you can access via Settings the variable directly and hence access the type as you have specified it:

    int t = Properties.Settings.Default.FuelTankCapacity;

    Here are more information about using settings at runtime

    You can access the value of settings with application scope on a read-only basis, and you can read and write the values of user-scope settings. Settings are available in C# through the Properties namespace.