Question

A bit of background:

I am currently working on an application that allows novice computer users to test their ping without having to go into the command prompt.

My application works, but I would very much like to take the application to the next level and feed in default form values from a locally stored .INI file.

I can give people the existing code, but I stress that this application works – I am just interested in advancing the code so I can read in default form values.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Net;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Net.NetworkInformation;

namespace Ping_Application
{
  public partial class Form1 : Form
  {
    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void pingButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (pingAddressTextBox.Text != "")
        {
            DataTable resultsList = new DataTable();
            resultsList.Columns.Add("Time", typeof(int));
            resultsList.Columns.Add("Status", typeof(string));

            for (int indexVariable = 1; indexVariable <= timesToPing.Value; indexVariable++)
            {
                string stat = "";
                Ping pinger = new Ping();

                PingReply reply = pinger.Send(pingAddressTextBox.Text);
                if (reply.Status.ToString() != "Success")
                    stat = "Failed";
                else
                    stat = reply.RoundtripTime.ToString();
                pinger.Dispose();
                resultsList.Rows.Add(Convert.ToInt32(reply.RoundtripTime), reply.Status.ToString());
            }

            resultsGrid.DataSource = resultsList;

            minPing.Text = resultsList.Compute("MIN(time)", "").ToString();

            maxPing.Text = resultsList.Compute("MAX(time)", "").ToString();

            avgPing.Text = resultsList.Compute("AVG(time)", "").ToString();
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("You are required to enter an address.");
        }
    }
    private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
    }
  }
}

I am uncertain how to go about it? Where would the default.ini file be stored for my application?

Also any comments on the existing code are welcomed.

If anyone can help I would be grateful.

Many Thanks,
J

Answer 1

You can store your default values in ini file (i.e config file), this default file will be stored in your system D or C folder…

and from that file you can get those default values from the ini file by the following method

 /// <summary>
/// This will read config.ini file and return the specific value
/// </summary>
/// <param name="MainSection">Main catergory name</param>
/// <param name="key">name of the key in main catergory</param>
/// <param name="defaultValue">if key is not in the section, then default value</param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static string getIniValue(string MainSection, string key, string defaultValue)
{
  IniFile inif = new IniFile(AppDataPath() + @"\config.ini");
  string value = "";

  value = (inif.IniReadValue(MainSection, key, defaultValue));
  return value;
}

public static string AppDataPath()
{
  gCommonAppDataPath = @"c:\" + gCompanyName + @"\" + gProductName; // your config file location path
  return gCommonAppDataPath;
}

make a class like this INifile.cs and place the below code in ini.cs

 public class IniFile
 {
    public string path;

    [DllImport("kernel32")]
    private static extern long WritePrivateProfileString(string section,string key,string val,string filePath);
    [DllImport("kernel32")]
    private static extern int GetPrivateProfileString(string section,string key,string def,StringBuilder retVal,int size,string filePath);

    /// <summary>
    /// INIFile Constructor.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="INIPath"></param>
    public IniFile(string INIPath)
    {
        path = INIPath;
    }
    /// <summary>
    /// Write Data to the INI File
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="Section"></param>
    /// Section name
    /// <param name="Key"></param>
    /// Key Name
    /// <param name="Value"></param>
    /// Value Name
    public void IniWriteValue(string Section,string Key,string Value)
    {
        WritePrivateProfileString(Section,Key,Value,this.path);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Read Data Value From the Ini File
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="Section"></param>
    /// <param name="Key"></param>
    /// <param name="Path"></param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public string IniReadValue(string Section,string Key,string Default)
    {
        StringBuilder temp = new StringBuilder(255);
        int i = GetPrivateProfileString(Section,Key,Default,temp,255,this.path);
        return temp.ToString();

    }
    public void IniWriteString(string Section, string Key, string Value)
    {
        WritePrivateProfileString(Section, Key, Value, this.path);
    }
    public string IniReadString(string Section, string Key, string Default)
    {
        StringBuilder temp = new StringBuilder(255);
        int i = GetPrivateProfileString(Section, Key, Default, temp, 255, this.path);
        return temp.ToString();
    }
 }

and the values in config file look like this ….

  [System]
  GroupCode=xx
  SiteCode=1234
  MemberPrefix=xxx
  AutoStart=no
  EnablePosButton=yes....

you can get this values like by using

string a = getIniValue("System", "Sitecode", "");

you will get the value like this 1234

pls let me know if this is unclear to understand

i hope it will helps you……