Question

In my app.config file I made the setting like the following

<add key = "Delimeter" value ="\t"/>  

Now while accessing the above from the program by using the below code

string delimeter = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["FileDelimeter"].ToString();
StreamWriter streamWriter = null;
streamWriter = new StreamWriter(fs);
 streamWriter.BaseStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.End);

 Enumerable
.Range(0, outData.Length)
.ToList().ForEach(i => streamWriter.Write(outData[i].ToString() + delimiter));

streamWriter.WriteLine();
streamWriter.Flush();

I am getting the output as

18804\t20100326\t5.59975381254617\t
18804\t20100326\t1.82599797249479\t

But if I directly use "\t" in the delimeter variable I am getting the correct output

18804   20100326    5.59975381254617    
18804   20100326    1.82599797249479

I found that while I am specifying the “\t” in the config file, and while reading it into

the delimeter variable, it is becoming "\\t" which is the problem.

I even tried with but with no luck.

I am using C#3.0.

Need help

Answer 1

You need to use the XML entity that represents tab, which I believe is 	 rather than the C# representation (which is "\t" as you already know).

<add key="Delimeter" value="&#09;"/>

Or you could always just take the easy way out:

// allow for <add key="Delimeter" value="\t"/>
if (delimiter == @"\t")
    delimiter = "\t";