How to check if an appSettings key exists?

Question

How do I check to see if an Application Setting is available?

i.e. app.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key ="someKey" value="someValue"/>
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

and in the codefile

if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.ContainsKey("someKey"))
{
  // Do Something
}else{
  // Do Something Else
}

Answer 1

MSDN: Configuration Manager.AppSettings

if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[name] != null)
{
// Now do your magic..
}

or

string s = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["myKey"];
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(s))
{
    // Key exists
}
else
{
    // Key doesn't exist
}

Answer 2

If the key you are looking for isn't present in the config file, you won't be able to convert it to a string with .ToString() because the value will be null and you'll get an "Object reference not set to an instance of an object" error. It's best to first see if the value exists before trying to get the string representation.

if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["myKey"]))
{
    String myKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["myKey"].ToString();
}

Or, as Code Monkey suggested:

if (ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["myKey"] != null)
{
// Now do your magic..
}

Answer 3

Safely returned default value via generics and LINQ.

public T ReadAppSetting<T>(string searchKey, T defaultValue, StringComparison compare = StringComparison.Ordinal)
{
    if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.AllKeys.Any(key => string.Compare(key, searchKey, compare) == 0)) {
        try
        { // see if it can be converted.
            var converter = TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(typeof(T));
            if (converter != null) defaultValue = (T)converter.ConvertFromString(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.GetValues(searchKey).First());
        }
        catch { } // nothing to do just return the defaultValue
    }
    return defaultValue;
}

Used as follows:

string LogFileName = ReadAppSetting("LogFile","LogFile");
double DefaultWidth = ReadAppSetting("Width",1280.0);
double DefaultHeight = ReadAppSetting("Height",1024.0);
Color DefaultColor = ReadAppSetting("Color",Colors.Black);

Answer 4

I think the LINQ expression may be best:

   const string MyKey = "myKey"

   if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.AllKeys.Any(key => key == MyKey))
          {
              // Key exists
          }

Answer 5

var isAlaCarte = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.AllKeys.Contains("IsALaCarte") && bool.Parse(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("IsALaCarte"));

Answer 6

if (ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.AllKeys.Contains("myKey"))
{
    // Key exists
}
else
{
    // Key doesn't exist
}