Reading/writing an INI file

Question

Is there any class in the .NET framework that can read/write standard .ini files:

[Section]
<keyname>=<value>
...

Delphi has the TIniFile component and I want to know if there is anything similar for C#?

Answer 1

Usually, when you create applications using C# and the .NET framework, you will not use INI files. It is more common to store settings in an XML-based configuration file or in the registry. However, if your software shares settings with a legacy application it may be easier to use its configuration file, rather than duplicating the information elsewhere.

The .NET framework does not support the use of INI files directly. However, you can use Windows API functions with Platform Invocation Services (P/Invoke) to write to and read from the files. In this link we create a class that represents INI files and uses Windows API functions to manipulate them. Please go through the following link.

Reading and Writing INI Files

Answer 2

Try this method:

public static Dictionary<string, string> ParseIniDataWithSections(string[] iniData)
{
    var dict = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    var rows = iniData.Where(t => 
        !String.IsNullOrEmpty(t.Trim()) && !t.StartsWith(";") && (t.Contains('[') || t.Contains('=')));
    if (rows == null || rows.Count() == 0) return dict;
    string section = "";
    foreach (string row in rows)
    {
        string rw = row.TrimStart();
        if (rw.StartsWith("["))
            section = rw.TrimStart('[').TrimEnd(']');
        else
        {
            int index = rw.IndexOf('=');
            dict[section + "-" + rw.Substring(0, index).Trim()] = rw.Substring(index+1).Trim().Trim('"');
        }
    }
    return dict;
}

It creates the dictionary where the key is "-". You can load it like this:

var dict = ParseIniDataWithSections(File.ReadAllLines(fileName));

Answer 3

PeanutButter.INI is a Nuget-packaged class for INI files manipulation. It supports read/write, including comments – your comments are preserved on write. It appears to be reasonably popular, is tested and easy to use. It's also totally free and open-source.

Disclaimer: I am the author of PeanutButter.INI.

Answer 4

If you only need read access and not write access and you are using the Microsoft.Extensions.Confiuration (comes bundled in by default with ASP.NET Core but works with regular programs too) you can use the NuGet package Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Ini to import ini files in to your configuration settings.

public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
{
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
        .AddIniFile("SomeConfig.ini", optional: false);
    Configuration = builder.Build();
}

Answer 5

Here is my class, works like a charm :

public static class IniFileManager
{


    [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);
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    private static extern int GetPrivateProfileSection(string lpAppName,
             byte[] lpszReturnBuffer, int nSize, string lpFileName);


    /// <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 static void IniWriteValue(string sPath,string Section, string Key, string Value)
    {
        WritePrivateProfileString(Section, Key, Value, sPath);
    }

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

    }

}

The use is obviouse since its a static class, just call IniFileManager.IniWriteValue for readsing a section or IniFileManager.IniReadValue for reading a section.

Answer 6

You should read and write data from xml files since you can save a whole object to xml and also you can populate a object from a saved xml. It is better an easy to manipulate objects.

Here is how to do it: Write Object Data to an XML File: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms172873.aspx Read Object Data from an XML File: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms172872.aspx