Read/Write to .ini files in vb.net

[awakener]

I'm trying to read and write .ini files from a VB.NET DLL. I've copied my VB6 code (declarations for GetPrivateProfileString, WritePrivateProfileString, etc.) and they don't appear to work. Instead of getting the contents of my ini file I get a 0 and my returned number of bytes is 5324320632995841.

Does anybody have any ideas? Do I need to change my API calls to work under .NET?

Cheers

[Iouri]

The following module demonstrates how to access INI files from VB.Net. It also illustrates the use of
function overloading to allow different functionality from the same call by using different parameters:

Option Strict On
Module INIAccess

#Region "API Calls"
' standard API declarations for INI access
' changing only "As Long" to "As Int32" (As Integer would work also)
Private Declare Unicode Function WritePrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" _
Alias "WritePrivateProfileStringW" (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, _
ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpString As String, _
ByVal lpFileName As String) As Int32

Private Declare Unicode Function GetPrivateProfileString Lib "kernel32" _
Alias "GetPrivateProfileStringW" (ByVal lpApplicationName As String, _
ByVal lpKeyName As String, ByVal lpDefault As String, _
ByVal lpReturnedString As String, ByVal nSize As Int32, _
ByVal lpFileName As String) As Int32
#End Region

Public Overloads Function INIRead(ByVal INIPath As String, _
ByVal SectionName As String, ByVal KeyName As String, _
ByVal DefaultValue As String) As String
' primary version of call gets single value given all parameters
Dim n As Int32
Dim sData As String
sData = space$(1024) ' allocate some room
n = GetPrivateProfileString(SectionName, KeyName, DefaultValue, _
sData, sData.Length, INIPath)
If n > 0 Then ' return whatever it gave us
INIRead = sdata.Substring(0, n)
Else
iniread = ""
End If
End Function

#Region "INIRead Overloads"
Public Overloads Function INIRead(ByVal INIPath As String, _
ByVal SectionName As String, ByVal KeyName As String) As String
' overload 1 assumes zero-length default
Return INIRead(inipath, sectionname, KeyName, "")
End Function

Public Overloads Function INIRead(ByVal INIPath As String, _
ByVal SectionName As String) As String
' overload 2 returns all keys in a given section of the given file
Return INIRead(inipath, sectionname, Nothing, "")
End Function

Public Overloads Function INIRead(ByVal INIPath As String) As String
' overload 3 returns all section names given just path
Return INIRead(inipath, Nothing, Nothing, "")
End Function
#End Region

Public Sub INIWrite(ByVal INIPath As String, ByVal SectionName As String, _
ByVal KeyName As String, ByVal TheValue As String)
Call WritePrivateProfileString(SectionName, KeyName, TheValue, INIPath)
End Sub

Public Overloads Sub INIDelete(ByVal INIPath As String, ByVal SectionName As String, _
ByVal KeyName As String) ' delete single line from section
Call WritePrivateProfileString(SectionName, KeyName, Nothing, INIPath)
End Sub

Public Overloads Sub INIDelete(ByVal INIPath As String, ByVal SectionName As String)
' delete section from INI file
Call WritePrivateProfileString(SectionName, Nothing, Nothing, INIPath)
End Sub

End Module


The code to call this would run along these lines:
Dim sValue As String
Dim sPath As String
sPath = "testing.ini"

INIWrite(sPath, "Section1", "Key1-1", "Value1-1") ' build INI file
INIWrite(sPath, "Section1", "Key1-2", "Value1-2")
INIWrite(sPath, "Section1", "Key1-3", "Value1-3")
INIWrite(sPath, "Section2", "Key2-1", "Value2-1")
INIWrite(sPath, "Section2", "Key2-2", "Value2-2")

sValue = INIRead(sPath, "section2", "key2-1", "Unknown") ' specify all
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "section2/key2-1/unknown", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

sValue = INIRead(sPath, "section2", "XYZ", "Unknown") ' specify all
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "section2/xyz/unknown", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

sValue = INIRead(sPath, "section2", "XYZ") ' use zero-length string as default
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "section2/XYZ", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

sValue = INIRead(sPath, "section1") ' get all keys in section
sValue = sValue.Replace(ControlChars.NullChar, "|"c) ' change embedded NULLs to pipe chars
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "section1 pre delete", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

INIDelete(sPath, "section1", "key1-2") ' delete middle entry in section 1
sValue = INIRead(sPath, "section1") ' get all keys in section again
sValue = sValue.Replace(ControlChars.NullChar, "|"c) ' change embedded NULLs to pipe chars
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "section1 post delete", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

sValue = INIRead(sPath) ' get all section names
sValue = sValue.Replace(ControlChars.NullChar, "|"c) ' change embedded NULLs to pipe chars
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "All sections pre delete", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

INIDelete(sPath, "section1") ' delete section
sValue = INIRead(sPath) ' get all section names
sValue = sValue.Replace(ControlChars.NullChar, "|"c) ' change embedded NULLs to pipe chars
MessageBox.Show(sValue, "All sections post delete", MessageBoxButtons.OK)

[Iouri]

Check out API. They have to be changed

[awakener]

Worked like a charm )

[catfishkrfc]

I have copied and pasted this code into by VB.NET project, and .NET does not seem to have a problem with the code, however nothing is being written to my INI file. I have created the INI file by using a File.Create("ExportSettings.ini"), which creates a file in the same directory as my executable, but when I try to write values to the INI file, nothing shows up. Here is my code:

Dim sINIpath as String
sINIpath = "ExportSettings.ini"

If File.Exists(sINIpath) = False then
File.Create(sINIpath)
modINIAccess.INIWrite(sINIpath, "sde", "connectstring", "1")
End If

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

[vbArch]

See this link for the Dot net way to do this
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vbasic/att...o/default.aspx

[gigemboy]

Well I notice that you are not specifying the full path to the file... you have no directory listed, just the filename...

sINIpath = "ExportSettings.ini"

That needs to be the full path... if you are trying to read or write it to the application folder, change it to

sINIpath = Application.StartupPath & "\ExportSettings.ini"

[jhammer]

There is a free library called Nini that I use to read and write ini files (and other configuration formats also):
http://nini.sourceforge.net/

It's great. It provides a unified interface to all configuration formats (ini, xml, command line arguments and registry). No need to use those ugly API commands.

[gigemboy]

Of course, if you want to get very basic with this, you just create a simple text file, each line you specify a name, a seperator, and a value... then just use a streamreader, reading each line in, splitting on the seperator, checking the name, if it is the name you want, then use its value...