I’ve been using Phil Haack‘s Custom Configuration Sections in 3 Easy Steps for some time now, and my configuration file management has never been happier… until I needed to read a collection of configuration elements.

Here’s a sample of the XML I needed to incorporate:

<importer>
<filespecs>
<add type="EmployeeCSV" path="d:\import\employees.csv" />
<add type="OrderCSV" path="d:\import\orders_*.csv" />
</filespecs>
</importer>

The typical solution is to write your own collection class (FilespecConfigurationElementCollection), inheriting from ConfigurationElementCollection, and ensuring your Filespec object inherits from ConfigurationElement. I figured there has to be a better way — and there is.

I wrote a generic version of ConfigurationElementCollection, which you can use to avoid writing the custom collection class. The code that follows is the generic class, the Filespec object I used, and the property declaration from my ConfigurationSettings class (as described in Phil’s previously mentioned article).

Note one key part of this implementation: You must override the ToString() method of your custom ConfigurationElement class to return a unique value. The generic ConfigurationElementCollection uses the ToString() method to obtain a . . .

→ Read More: Simplify configuration with a generic ConfigurationElementCollection class

I received word that my third article for .Net Developer’s Journal will appear in the September 2004 issue. It’s the third in the series of articles entitled, “C# and the .Net Framework: Tying It All Together”. The first article was in the January 2004 issue, the second article was in the May 2004 issue. Why such a delay between articles? They never told me they were publishing the first article, so I didn’t get the second article to them until after it printed. They never received the third article (which was originally sent in May 2004) and we didn’t catch up with each other until last month. I’m working on the fourth article now and hopefully it’ll be in the October or November issue.

. . .

→ Read More: Article to appear in September 2004 DNDJ

My latest article, C# and the .Net Framework: Tying It All Together (Part 2) has been published in the May 2004 issue of the .Net Developer’s Journal. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

. . .

→ Read More: New C# article published in the .Net Developer’s Journal