Paul Newton wrote:
Hi
I am toying with OO approaches to handling INI files. First of all I
am a great believer in NOT reinventing wheels so if something along
the lines I am describing already exists, please let me know. The
general idea is this
At the beginning of the app, create a "settings object" and populate
it with settings from an INI file
While the app is running, get and set settings using the "settings
object" and its objects and properties. Maybe even delete and add new
ones too ! No access to the INI file at this stage.
At the end of the app, write all the settings back to the INI file.
Getting and setting vales (from/to the INI file) will be done only
once (at the beginning and end of the application) and will be done
using the registry class that comes with VFP.
Like an INI file, I want whatever approach I use to emulate the
"sections" approach of INI files. Moreover this approach would enable
access throughout the running app to more than one set of settings
(oUserSettings and oGeneralSettings could co-exist for example).
I have thought of two ways of doing this and would like
coments/ideas/suggestions - this is the barest outline of the approach.
Method 1
oSettings (based on the custom class) contains oSection objects (also
based on the custom class). There is one oSection object for each
section in the INI file and each has the same name as the
corresponding section in the INI file. Restrictions will apply where
the section names contain characters (esp spaces) that would make
invalid object names.
Each oSection object has custom properties, each one corresponding to
an entry in the INI file.
I have already done some work on this approach and it seems doable.
Method 2
Based on collections. oSettings is a collection of oSections
collections and the oSections are collections of values (this approach
would use character keys for all the items in the oSettings collection
and for all of the items in each of the oSections collections.
There is another refinement that I am thinking about and that is the
use of "enhanced" INI files (these would not be compatible with normal
INI files). Optionally an entry in an enhanced INI file would look
like this:
[Section1]
Setting1=10 [N]
Setting2=Y [L]
Setting3=503233 [C]
I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions as I would like to try
to progress this idea
Cheers
I use a MySQL table that has the structure cKeyField, cKeyValue,
cKeyType when creating the oSettings object. I prefer that over the INI
idea, as it's much easier, imo.
--
Michael J. Babcock, MCP
MB Software Solutions, LLC
http://mbsoftwaresolutions.com
http://fabmate.com
"Work smarter, not harder, with MBSS custom software solutions!"
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