Using My.Settings to save an array in VB

Question

How do you save an array or an arraylist in vb.net using My.Settings?

I cannot find the array type anywhere, even in the browse window.

I absolutely need to be able to save this.

I know I can convert the array to a string, but I do not know how to convert a string to an array. I know that if I were to break it at a delimiter then I could convert a string to an array, but my problem is that any text at all could be stored within the array as a single value, so I cannot pick a delimiter that is likely to be used.

Please help!

Answer 1

What kind of array? I've had luck using StringCollection for strings. ArrayList works for most anything else (and that's about the only place I'd use arraylist).

Answer 2

I would either use the StringCollection type, and just convert your elements to/from strings when storing them in my.settings, or use XML Serialization to turn the array in to an xml string, and store that in my.settings.

Answer 3

I was also facing the same problem and I came up with a solution to this.

Here are the steps:

1. Open up the properties of your app and select settings
2. select the setting name and then where it says type click on the arrow and select browse.
3. in the browse window type in system.collections.arraylist and hit enter!
4. there you have your array!

You can use array like this:

your_array_name(here_comes_the_item_no.) = whatever