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c#xmlwindowsapp-configenvironment-variables
Jean-Bernard Pellerin
Jean-Bernard Pellerin

Reputation: 12670

App.config settings, environment variable as partial path

I'm new to tinkering with app.config and xml, and am currently doing some refactoring in some code I haven't written.
Currently we have a snippet which looks like this: 

<setting name="FirstSetting" serializeAs="String">
  <value>Data Source=C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\ApplicationData\Company ...;Persist Security Info=False</value>

What I'd like to do is have it instead point to something like ${PROGRAMDATA}\Company\...

How can I achieve this, keeping in mind that PROGRAMDATA will not always point to C:\ProgramData ?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 10723

Answers (5)

troYman
troYman

Reputation: 1808

use 

Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables(stringFromConfig);

it replaces all existing environment variables in the string like %ProgramData% with the exact values.

Upvotes: 4

Jean-Bernard Pellerin
Jean-Bernard Pellerin

Reputation: 12670

I didn't really want to change it in code as per the other responses, since that removes the purpose of having it as a config setting.

As it turns out, %ProgramData%\Company... is the proper way of using environment variables in this context.

Upvotes: 3

Bala R
Bala R

Reputation: 108957

you could use

var programDataValue = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PROGRAMDATA");

if it comes from an environment variable.

Upvotes: 0

Kumar
Kumar

Reputation: 1015

Considering the PROGRAMDATA is an environment variable, you can access using C# 

String EnviromentPath = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("PROGRAMDATA", EnvironmentVariableTarget.Machine);

Upvotes: 0

Hans Passant
Hans Passant

Reputation: 941635

Yes, write it just like that in your setting. Then just substitute ${PROGRAMDATA} at runtime:

        var setting = Properties.Settings.Default.FirstSetting;
        setting = setting.Replace("${PROGRAMDATA)", 
            Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData));

Upvotes: 1

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