Can .NET load and parse a properties file equivalent to Java Properties class?

c# configuration file-io load
Tai Squared picture Tai Squared · Jan 27, 2009 · Viewed 99.1k times · Source

Is there an easy way in C# to read a properties file that has each property on a separate line followed by an equals sign and the value, such as the following:

ServerName=prod-srv1
Port=8888
CustomProperty=Any value

In Java, the Properties class handles this parsing easily:

Properties myProperties=new Properties();
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream (new File("CustomProps.properties"));
myProperties.load(fis);
System.out.println(myProperties.getProperty("ServerName"));
System.out.println(myProperties.getProperty("CustomProperty"));

I can easily load the file in C# and parse each line, but is there a built in way to easily get a property without having to parse out the key name and equals sign myself? The C# information I have found seems to always favor XML, but this is an existing file that I don't control and I would prefer to keep it in the existing format as it will require more time to get another team to change it to XML than parsing the existing file.

Answer

Jesper Palm picture Jesper Palm · Jan 27, 2009

No there is no built-in support for this.

You have to make your own "INIFileReader". Maybe something like this?

var data = new Dictionary<string, string>();
foreach (var row in File.ReadAllLines(PATH_TO_FILE))
  data.Add(row.Split('=')[0], string.Join("=",row.Split('=').Skip(1).ToArray()));

Console.WriteLine(data["ServerName"]);

Edit: Updated to reflect Paul's comment.

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