Attribute usage examples

Instead of reading and writing setting manually you can use the ReadFrom and WriteInto methods. Those methods read and write from public properties of your class.

public class MyApplicationSettings
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Basic case. Setting named StringValue is uesd for
    /// this property and setting must exist.
    /// </summary>
    public string StringValue { get; set; }
}

In order to read the settings into the class above you would use the following code

settings = AppSettings.CreateForAssembly(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly(), FileOption.FileMustExist);
var mySettings = new MyApplicationSettings();

// Write all the settings into our own object
settings.WriteInto(mySettings);
mySettings.StringValue = "updated";
// Update the values from the our object and save
settings.ReadFrom(mySettings);
settings.Save();

If you want to control what is being read/write you can use the IgnorePropertyAttribute and SettingPropertyAttributes like in the example below

public class MyApplicationSettings
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Basic case. Setting named StringValue is used for
    /// this property and setting must exist.
    /// </summary>
    public string StringValue { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Setting named DoubleValue is used for this property.
    /// </summary>
    [SettingProperty(SettingName = "DoubleValue")]
    public double Double { get; private set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Uses fi-FI culture to convert the value.
    /// </summary>
    [SettingProperty(SettingName = "DoubleWithFinnishLocale", CultureName = "fi-FI")]
    public double LocalizedValue { get; private set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// This is just a property which we don't care when reading or
    /// writing settings.
    /// </summary>
    [IgnoreProperty]
    public string ValueWeDontCareAbout { get; private set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// This value might or might not exist. If it does not exist
    /// then default value abc is used when reading configuration settings.
    /// </summary>
    [SettingProperty(IsOptional = true, DefaultValue = "A")]
    public string OptionalSetting { get; private set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Connection strings can be handled by specifying that the property
    /// is actually ConnectionString.
    /// </summary>
    [SettingProperty(IsConnectionString = true, SettingName = "MyDatabase")]
    public string ConnectionString { get; set; }
}

In the source code the Examples folder contains runnable example which demonstrates attribute usage.