cINI API Wrapper (C#)

Written mainly for legacy support, as a lot applications still use ".ini" files and although there is XML support native to .NET (".config" files), I tend to find that for some circumstances ini files are straight forward and more practical to use.

Using the Code

// read value from ini / inf
aejw.cIni ini = new aejw.cIni("C:\\IniFile.ini");
string retValue = ini.ReadValue("TheSection","TheKey", "DefaultReturn");

Reading, Writing and Removing Values

aejw.cIni ini = new aejw.cIni("C:\\IniFile.ini");

// read value from ini / inf
string retValue = ini.ReadValue("TheSection", "TheKey", "");

// write value to ini / inf
ini.WriteValue("TheSection", "TheKey", "TheValue");

// remove / delete value from ini / inf
ini.RemoveValue("TheSection", "TheKey");

Indexing / Content

aejw.cIni ini = new aejw.cIni("C:\\IniFile.ini");

// read sections from ini / inf
foreach(string sectionName in ini.ReadSections()){
	MessageBox.Show("Section: " + sectionName);
}

// read key names from ini / inf
foreach(string keyName in ini.ReadKeys()){
	MessageBox.Show("Key: " + keyName);
}

Code Tutorial - Referring to the API function

DWORD GetPrivateProfileString(
	LPCTSTR lpAppName,
	LPCTSTR lpKeyName,
	LPCTSTR lpDefault,
	LPTSTR  lpReturnedString,
	DWORD   nSize,
	LPCTSTR lpFileName
);

[DllImport("kernel32", SetLastError=true)]
private static extern int getPrivateProfileString(
	string sectionName,
	string keyName,
	string defaultValue,
	byte[] iniValue,
	int    bufferLen,
	string filename
);

Code Tutorial - Calling the API Function

private string getString(string iniFilename, string section, string key, string defaultValue){

	// prepare the default return and create
	// a byte array to pass as a pointer
	string retValue=defaultValue;
	byte[] bRet=new byte[255];

	// call the API function, passing a Section name, value name, default
	// value, buffer length (length of the passed byte array) and the ini
	// filename.
	int i = GetPrivateProfileString(section, key, defaultValue, bRet, 255, iniFilename);

	// as referred above we use a framework function to collect the string
	// from the byte array used as a pointer. Note the 'i' variable is the
	// return from the API call, this is passed to the text encoding as the
	// total length of the return.
	retValue = System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252).GetString(bRet,0,i).TrimEnd((char)0);

	return retValue;

}

string setting  = getString("SectionName","ValueName","");

string setting2 = getString("SectionName2","ValueName2","DefaultReturn");