Encode variables in My.Settings string & dynamically parse

Question

I would like to be able to take a string such as the following and put in in MySettings and have the application dynamically parse the expression. Is that possible?

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Name: ClientName
Type: String
Scope: Application
Value: MyData(i).FirstName & " " & MyData(i).LastName

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Dim name As String = My.Settings.ClientName

Answer 1

It's not really possible to do if using just the simple String class. You'll either have to create a method to parse it out or create your own object type that will do the parsing. Either way, it requires that you write code to parse out that data.

If you need some help with parsing of the data, using your above example, it's simple enough to parse.

Dim s As String = "First Last"
Dim names() As String = s.Split(" "c)

Dim firstName As String = names(0)
Dim lastName As String = names(1)

I'm also not sure what your MyData object is. You could put a parsing routine in that object to automatically parse the name and set the properties as needed. It could even be part of the constructor.

Public Sub DoWhateverINeedToDo()
    Dim md As New MyData(My.Settings.ClientName)

    Console.WriteLine("First Name: " & md.FirstName)
    Console.WriteLine("Last Name: " & md.LastName)
End Sub

Public Class MyData

    Public Property FirstName As String
    Public Property LastName As String

    Public Sub New(ByVal fullName As String)
        Dim names() As String = fullName.Split(" "c)

        Me.FirstName = names(0)
        Me.LastName = names(1)
    End Sub

End Class