Question

I have a Winform app that has 16 SQL Connections currently stored in the DAL Projects Settings.settings.

I am trying to write a “Manager” class to simplify this(like here). However, most of the examples I find on the web seem to use ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["something"]. While, I WAS using Properties.Settings.Default.something.

Can someone, please, explain which is considered CORRECT and why for a Desktop applications?

Answer 1

I’ve never been a big fan of putting sql connection strings into configuration files for software. Users have a habit of goofing them up out of curiosity or stupidity (or some combination of the two). I like to put all of my connection strings (development, model, production, whatever) into the Properties of my data access library, and include within it a ConfigurationSettings class that I use to access them based on some property that is set by the consuming application:

public class ConfigurationSettings
{

    public static string MyConnectionString
    {
    get
            if(ConfigurationSettings.TestMode)
                return Properties.Settings.Default.MyConnectionStringTest;
            else
                return Properties.Settings.Default.MyConnectionStringProd;
    }
    }

    // I typically only have test and not-test. This could
    // easily be some other combination of values to satisfy
    // multiple environments.
    public static bool TestMode { get; private set;}
}

This allows me to call the static properties of this class through a common name and have all connection strings available depending on some criteria. This gets your specific datasets, entities, whatever data model you’re using from being in the business of worrying about connection strings and the settings can be compiled into the .dll (and no longer need to worry about them). This method can also be modified to pull settings from an app.config (which I do for ASP.Net sites) in a similar method.

UPDATE: There really is no “correct” way as you imply. The app.config was designed to hold configuration settings that are modifiable without rebuilding the application. Property Settings were designed to hold settings that are not modifiable. So both are perfectly valid. Probably the most “correct” way is a way that makes sense both for your application and for your development team.