Medo.Config

Almost every application needs configuration handling and .NET has a reasonable way of doing this. But, I personally find it slightly overly complicated and I don’t like XML files it uses. I perfer a simple file format and thus, I have used my own configuration handling classes for years now. Code was simple and available as part of my Medo library.

So, after probably years of just copying class file from project to project, I finally decided to rewrite my configuration handling as a NuGet library. Better late than never, I guess.

So, what does Medo.Config offer?

Firstly, API interface is as simple as it gets.

Config.Write("KeyS", "Value");
Config.Write("KeyN", 42);
var s = Config.Read("KeyS", "DEFAULT");
var n = Config.Read("KeyN", 0);

By inferring type from default value, it ensures you don’t have to deal with nulls. While you do have Config.User property for more direct access, that is for special occasions only. And yes, it does support system configuration files under Linux.

Secondly, it uses a reasonable configuration file format. Each entry is just a key/value pair.

Key1: Value1
Key2: Value2

While it uses colon (:) internally, it will read key/value pairs with equals (=) just fine. This ensures this format is easily read or written by a human.

On topic of readability, I am fan of comments and I really hate when my comment gets removed when I save configs. Well, not here. For example, writing Key here is not going to delete comment. Honestly, back in days when I decided to “roll my own” this was really high on my priority list.

# Comment that stays
Key: Value

Proper configuration handling on Linux was also high on my priority list. Mind you, old code was only partially handling this as I used .app as my config. With this new code, I finally switched to XDG directory structure. This ensures that my home directory stays clear and that configuration is separate from user state.

Yes, this class supports both configration (user and system) and state. While you can use the same functions to access state, everything gets stored into a separate state file.

Config.State.Write("State", 1.0);
var s = Config.State.Read("State", 0.0);

But wait, that’s not all. This library also supports recent file handling. You just add files as you use them and library will handle ordering, duplicate handling, count limiting, and other such details.

Config.Recent.Files.Add(new FileInfo("file.txt"));
foreach (var file in Config.Recent.Files) {
  // do somethign with a recent file
}

This is not a rocket science but it surely comes in handy.