Question

I am trying to create a simple tool for a service person to update a few entries in the App.Config of a different program. The App.Config file contains custom parameters used upon initialization of our program.

Since the App.Config contains many sensitive items a tool is needed to ensure only certain parameters are changed. Thus, the reason not to allow them to edit the App.Config directly.

My questions:

1. How can I access the name-value pairs from the config sections of an App.config from a separate program?
2. Which is better suited for the UI: Winforms or WPF? Are their controls that make it easy to add more entries in the future?
3. The tool should allow the user to set either a String, int, double or Boolean.

Here is the structure of the App.Config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>

  <configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="Settings">
      <section name="Section1" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
      <section name="Section2" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
      <section name="Section3" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
      <section name="Section4" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
    </sectionGroup>
  </configSections>

  <Settings>
    <Section1>
      <add key="NAME_STRING" value="Some String"/>
    </Section1>

    <Section2>
      <add key="NAME_INTEGER" value="10"/>
    </Section2>

    <Section3>
      <add key="NAME_DOUBLE" value="10.5"/>
    </Section3>

    <Section4>
      <add key="NAME_BOOLEAN" value="true"/>
    </Section4>
  </Settings>

  ... Omitted ...

</configuration>

In the program which uses the App.Config itself, I can easily change the values like so:

NameValueCollection nvc = (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("Settings/Section1");

Is there a similar way to do this from a separate program after loading the App.Config?

Answer 1

An answer to Question 1: An app.config file is an XML file. It might be easiest to load it as an XML document and modify that programmatically, followed by a save, than to use System.Configuration classes.

ETA: I believe it can be done with ConfigurationManager. Look at the OpenMappedExeConfiguration method. There’s a good example there.