Store Generic Classes in Settings

Introduction

There are some situations where it's very useful to store an array of custom objects in settings. I had one today. I've tried using ArrayList but my custom objects were not saved. I thought it would be great if I could directly save list of custom type in settings. This meant that my only problem was how to make use of generics in settings that was solved quite simply with this method.

Limitation

This can't be used for Dictionary and Tuple.

Using the Code

To use generic classes in settings, you have to create a wrapper class that extends generic class and use it as type of setting property. Here's a simple example:

public class MyClass //Custom class for list
{
    public int MyProperty { get; set; } //just for example
}

public class MyClassList : List<MyClass> { } //Wrapper class of list of type MyClass 

//Simple Console Application for Test
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    MyClassList list = new MyClassList();
    list.Add(new MyClass() { MyProperty = 5 });
    Properties.Settings.Default.MySetting = list; //MySetting is type of MyClassList
    Properties.Settings.Save();
}    

After compiling this test application, you can delete your code and see if settings have saved:

//Simple Console Application for test
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    foreach (MyClass item in Properties.Settings.MySetting)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(item.MyProperty);
    }
    Console.Read();
}    

Conclusion

I hope this will be useful for someone who'll have the same needs as I had and won't spend one hour on thinking about how to do what he wants.