Optimal way of saving application configuration in C#

Question

I have a Configuration class that stores certain variables which serve as settings. And I'm struggling to find easiest and most optimal way to save it to file - would be weird if user had to configure it every time.

Example class:

public static Configuration 
{
   public static bool A = false;
   public static bool B = false;
   public static int C = 100;
}

Serializing collection is not an issue, but i cannot really make collection out of these variables, since they have not matching data types.

I'm certain solution is simple, but for some reason I'm stuck here.

Why not save it as a json file? There is a popular nuget package called Newtonsoft.Json that can easily save your class settings to a human-readable file, and also read them back. — Tam Bui, Dec 19 '20 at 22:21
There is to many option, Json,Text or XML. All of them depend on what you need. Xml is an option if you want a user to be able to edit and understand the file. `Configuration` Class should contain a method `SaveChanges` that saves the changes of the class to the file. — Alen.Toma, Dec 19 '20 at 22:24
@TamBui is there an easy way to serialize it to Json, or I have to add it to the json manually one by one? It's static class, can't create instance. — csdev, Dec 19 '20 at 22:30
See top answer here for how to serialize static properties with Json: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24336597/why-cant-json-net-serialize-static-or-const-member-variables — Tam Bui, Dec 19 '20 at 22:35
@TamBui but static class cannot be serialized. So as I thought, i will have to make exact same copy of this class, but not static. A lot of code, but there is no other way it would seem. — csdev, Dec 19 '20 at 22:43
A lot of code why? Just deserialize once and put the deserialized instance in a static class. Please do some research before asking questions here — Camilo Terevinto, Dec 19 '20 at 22:46
@CamiloTerevinto because if settings class have 1000 fields, i need non-static copy, so now instead of 1000 lines i have 2000 lines. And i need to manually, line by line rewrite values from static fields to non static fields, and then serialize. — csdev, Dec 19 '20 at 22:50
@csdev, you can easily alleviate your issues by moving your static properties into instance variables. To update your code with a simple "Find/Replace" would take just a few minutes and not be a lot of work. It would also, eliminate "a lot of code" with managing the data that you are facing by making everything static. I'll elaborate in an answer. — Tam Bui, Dec 19 '20 at 23:26

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 19 '20 at 23:27

Elaborating on my comment, you're better off converting your static class into an instance class for minimizing manual coding to store/read the property values in the future. This refactoring can be done in minutes. So do that as a first step, it shouldn't take too long to do, and a simple "Find/Replace" can fix all of your declarations everywhere in your code where you previously used "Configuration".

Keep your implementation static, but change to a single instance that you are accessing.

public class Configuration
{
    private static Configuration instance;
    public static Configuration Instance
    {
        get
        {
            if (instance == null)
            {
                instance = new Configuration();
            }
            return instance;
        }
        set
        {
            instance = value;
        }
    }

    public bool A { get; set; }
    public bool B { get; set; }
    public int C { get; set; }
}

Do a Find/Replace where ever you declared your static class and replace "Configuration." with "Configuration.Instance.". Also, where you previously declared static properties like public static bool A; public static bool B; ... just select all of the text, do a Find/Replace and replace "static " with "".
Save/Read your data

// To Save
File.WriteAllText(@"c:\temp\myconfig.json", Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Configuration.Instance));

// To Read
using (var file = File.OpenText(@"c:\temp\myconfig.json"))
{
    JsonSerializer serializer = new JsonSerializer();
    Configuration.Instance = (Configuration)serializer.Deserialize(file, typeof(Configuration));
}

So basically we make the class static but fool the environment to think it's not. — csdev, Dec 19 '20 at 23:42
No @csdev, Tam did not make a static class and you shouldn't either. Static classes have [very specific purposes](https://stackoverflow.com/q/241339/22437) and configuration classes are not one of them. — Dour High Arch, Dec 20 '20 at 00:19

Optimal way of saving application configuration in C#

1 Answers1