2.0 Breaking Changes

• Classes inheriting SettingsBase<T> no longer require a default constructor
• Default values cannot be set in the constructor
  • Default values must either be in-line assignments to properties or assigned in the InitializeDefaultValues()
• Default constructors are no longer required for the settings class
  • Default constructor of SettingsBase<T> uses a FileSettingsSaver that saves in the same directory as the assembly it is being executed in and a filename the same as the executable, but with a .cfg extension
  • Any classes contained within the settings class that is inheriting SettingsBase<T> must still have a default constructor

Example

Default values must be assign inline (like shown below for the Age property) or within the InitializeDefaultValues() method. In the below example the default values would be:

• Age = 33
• FirstName = "Joe"
• LastName = null Because values are being set in the constructor, a call to IsDirtyCheck() would return true because the default value for Age is 33, but after instantiating the ExampleClass object, Age would be 45 (similarly, LastName would be "Doe" and not the default value of null).

internal class ExampleClass : SettingsBase<ExampleClass>
{
	public int Age { get; set; } = 33;

	public string FirstName { get; set; }
	public string? LastName { get; set; }

	public ExampleClass()
	{
		Age = 45;
		LastName = "Doe";
	}

	public override void InitializeDefaultValues()
	{
		FirstName = "Joe";
	}
}		 

The Settings.Saver library comes with two implementations of ISettingsSaver:

1. FileSettingsSaver
   • Saves settings to a file.
2. InMemorySettingsSaver
   • Does not save to disk, stores saved settings in memory. Used primarily for testing.

SimpleSettings settings = new SimpleClass(new FileSettingsSaver(@"C:\settings.cfg"));




internal class SimpleSettings : SettingsBase<SimpleSettings>
{
	public int Age { get; set; } = 33;

	public SimpleSettings(ISettingsSaver settingsSaver) : base(settingsSaver)
	{
	}

	public override void InitializeDefaultValues()
	{
		
	}
}		 

Equality Checking

Calling Save() will call CheckIsDirty() and only performs a save operation if one or more of the properties have changed.

CheckIsDirty() evaluates changes by value-type, not reference type. If the settings class contains an object, it will check whether the value-types within that object have changed. It also supports objects within objects for property evaluation.

internal class Address
{
	public string State { get; set; }

	public string City { get; set; }

	//A default constructor is required
	public Address()
	{
	
	}
}

internal class User
{
	public int Id { get; set; }

	public string User { get; set; }

	public int Age { get; set; }	

	public Address Address{ get; set; } = new Address();

	//A default constructor is required
	public User()
	{
	
	}
}


internal class SettingsClass : SettingsBase<SettingsClass>
{
	public User TheUser { get; set; } = new User();

	public SettingsClass(ISettingsSaver settingsSaver) : base(settingsSaver)
	{

	}
	
	public override void InitializeDefaultValues()
	{

	}
}

SettingsClass settings = new (new InMemorySettingsSaver());
settings.TheUser = new User()
{
	Id = 1,
	Name = "John Doe",
	Age = 54,
	Address = new Address()
	{
		State = "IL",
		City = "Chicago"
	}
}
//Save settings
settings.Save();

// Create a new Address object, but set the properties to the same values as the Address that was saved.
settings.TheUser.Address = new Address()
{
	State = "IL",
	City = "Chicago"
}


bool hasChanged = settings.CheckIsDirty(); //hasChanged is false

Disclaimer

SettingsSaver does not support properties that are arrays, lists, or collections.