How to get a List<string> collection of values from app.config in WPF?

Question

The following example fills the ItemsControl with a List of BackupDirectories which I get from code.

How can I change this so that I get the same information from the app.config file?

XAML:

<Window x:Class="TestReadMultipler2343.Window1"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Title="Window1" Height="300" Width="300">
    <Grid Margin="10">
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="30"/>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"/>
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="120"/>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="160"/>
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <TextBlock 
            Grid.Row="0"
            Grid.Column="0"
            Text="Title:"/>
        <TextBlock 
            Grid.Row="0"
            Grid.Column="1" 
            Text="{Binding Title}"/>
        <TextBlock 
            Grid.Row="1"
            Grid.Column="0"
            Text="Backup Directories:"/>
        <ItemsControl 
            Grid.Row="1"
            Grid.Column="1"
            ItemsSource="{Binding BackupDirectories}"/>
    </Grid>
</Window>

code-behind:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Windows;
using System.Configuration;
using System.ComponentModel;

namespace TestReadMultipler2343
{
    public partial class Window1 : Window, INotifyPropertyChanged
    {

        #region ViewModelProperty: Title
        private string _title;
        public string Title
        {
            get
            {
                return _title;
            }

            set
            {
                _title = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("Title");
            }
        }
        #endregion

        #region ViewModelProperty: BackupDirectories
        private List<string> _backupDirectories = new List<string>();
        public List<string> BackupDirectories
        {
            get
            {
                return _backupDirectories;
            }

            set
            {
                _backupDirectories = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("BackupDirectories");
            }
        }
        #endregion

        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = this;

            Title = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("title");

            GetBackupDirectoriesInternal();
        }

        void GetBackupDirectoriesInternal()
        {
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:\test1");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:\test2");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:\test3");
            BackupDirectories.Add(@"C:\test4");
        }

        void GetBackupDirectoriesFromConfig()
        {
            //BackupDirectories = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.GetValues("backupDirectories");
        }


        #region INotifiedProperty Block
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        protected void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;

            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
            }
        }
        #endregion

    }
}

app.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="title" value="Backup Tool" />
    <!--<add key="backupDirectories">
      <add value="C:\test1"/>
      <add value="C:\test2"/>
      <add value="C:\test3"/>
      <add value="C:\test4"/>
    </add>-->
  </appSettings>
</configuration>

Answer 1

You could have them semi-colon delimited in a single value, e.g.

App.config

<add key="paths" value="C:\test1;C:\test2;C:\test3" />

C#

var paths = new List<string>(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["paths"].Split(new char[] { ';' }));

Answer 2

You can create your own custom config section in the app.config file. There are quite a few tutorials around to get you started. Ultimately, you could have something like this:

<configSections>
    <section name="backupDirectories" type="TestReadMultipler2343.BackupDirectoriesSection, TestReadMultipler2343" />
  </configSections>

<backupDirectories>
   <directory location="C:\test1" />
   <directory location="C:\test2" />
   <directory location="C:\test3" />
</backupDirectories>

To complement Richard's answer, this is the C# you could use with his sample configuration:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Xml;

namespace TestReadMultipler2343
{
    public class BackupDirectoriesSection : IConfigurationSectionHandler
    {
        public object Create(object parent, object configContext, XmlNode section)
        {
            List<directory> myConfigObject = new List<directory>();

            foreach (XmlNode childNode in section.ChildNodes)
            {
                foreach (XmlAttribute attrib in childNode.Attributes)
                {
                    myConfigObject.Add(new directory() { location = attrib.Value });
                }
            }
            return myConfigObject;
        }
    }

    public class directory
    {
        public string location { get; set; }
    }
}

Then you can access the backupDirectories configuration section as follows:

List<directory> dirs = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("backupDirectories") as List<directory>;

Answer 3

I love Richard Nienaber's answer, but as Chuu pointed out, it really doesn't tell how to accomplish what Richard is refering to as a solution. Therefore I have chosen to provide you with the way I ended up doing this, ending with the result Richard is talking about.

The solution

In this case I'm creating a greeting widget that needs to know which options it has to greet in. This may be an over-engineered solution to OPs question as I am also creating an container for possible future widgets.

First I set up my collection to handle the different greetings

public class GreetingWidgetCollection : System.Configuration.ConfigurationElementCollection
{
    public List<IGreeting> All { get { return this.Cast<IGreeting>().ToList(); } }

    public GreetingElement this[int index]
    {
        get
        {
            return base.BaseGet(index) as GreetingElement;
        }
        set
        {
            if (base.BaseGet(index) != null)
            {
                base.BaseRemoveAt(index);
            }
            this.BaseAdd(index, value);
        }
    }

    protected override ConfigurationElement CreateNewElement()
    {
        return new GreetingElement();
    }

    protected override object GetElementKey(ConfigurationElement element)
    {
        return ((GreetingElement)element).Greeting;
    }
}

Then we create the acutal greeting element and it's interface

(You can omit the interface, that's just the way I'm always doing it.)

public interface IGreeting
{
    string Greeting { get; set; }
}

public class GreetingElement : System.Configuration.ConfigurationElement, IGreeting
{
    [ConfigurationProperty("greeting", IsRequired = true)]
    public string Greeting
    {
        get { return (string)this["greeting"]; }
        set { this["greeting"] = value; }
    }
}

The greetingWidget property so our config understands the collection

We define our collection GreetingWidgetCollection as the ConfigurationProperty greetingWidget so that we can use "greetingWidget" as our container in the resulting XML.

public class Widgets : System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection
{
    public static Widgets Widget => ConfigurationManager.GetSection("widgets") as Widgets;

    [ConfigurationProperty("greetingWidget", IsRequired = true)]
    public GreetingWidgetCollection GreetingWidget
    {
        get { return (GreetingWidgetCollection) this["greetingWidget"]; }
        set { this["greetingWidget"] = value; }
    }
}

The resulting XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
   <widgets>
       <greetingWidget>
           <add greeting="Hej" />
           <add greeting="Goddag" />
           <add greeting="Hello" />
           ...
           <add greeting="Konnichiwa" />
           <add greeting="Namaskaar" />
       </greetingWidget>
    </widgets>
</configuration>

And you would call it like this

List<GreetingElement> greetings = Widgets.GreetingWidget.All;