How to add a default value to a custom ASP.NET Profile property

Question

I know you can add defaultValues using the web.config like this:

<profile>
    <properties>
        <add name="AreCool" type="System.Boolean" defaultValue="False" />
    </properties>
</profile>

but I have the Profile inherited from a class:

<profile inherits="CustomProfile" defaultProvider="CustomProfileProvider" enabled="true">
  <providers>
    <clear />
    <add name="CustomProfileProvider" type="CustomProfileProvider" />
  </providers>
</profile>

Heres the class:

Public Class CustomProfile
    Inherits ProfileBase

    Public Property AreCool() As Boolean
        Get
            Return Me.GetPropertyValue("AreCool")
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Boolean)
            Me.SetPropertyValue("AreCool", value)
        End Set
    End Property

End Class

I don't know how to set the default value of the property. Its causing errors because without a default value, it uses an empty string, which cannot be converted to a Boolean. I tried adding <DefaultSettingValue("False")> _ but that didn't seem to make a difference.

I'm also using a custom ProfileProvider (CustomProfileProvider).

Answer 1

Just a thought, can you do something like this or some variation (meaning instead of .length, use dbnull.value() or however you need to check if it is an actual item?

Edited code to handle empty set parameters

Public Class CustomProfile Inherits ProfileBase

Dim _outBool as boolean
Public Property AreCool() As Boolean 
    Get 
        Return Me.GetPropertyValue("AreCool")
    End Get 
    Set(ByVal value As Object) 
         ''if the value can be parsed to boolean, set AreCool to value, else default to false''
         If([Boolean].TryParse(value, outBool) Then
            Me.SetPropertyValue("AreCool", value)
        Else
            Me.SetPropertyValue("AreCool", False)
        End If

    End Set 
End Property 

End Class

Answer 2

The typical way that Microsoft does this throughout the .NET framework is to use the get portion to check to see if the value can be converted and returning the default if it cannot. For example:

Public Class CustomProfile 
    Inherits ProfileBase 

    Public Property AreCool() As Boolean 
        Get 
            Dim o as Object = Me.GetPropertyValue("AreCool") 
            If TypeOf o Is Boolean Then
                Return CBool(o)
            End If
            Return False 'Return the default
        End Get 
        Set(ByVal value As Boolean) 
            Me.SetPropertyValue("AreCool", value) 
        End Set 
    End Property 

End Class