WritePrivateProfileSection does not over-write

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The following code is supposed to write a section in an ini-file.

Microsoft Help file states "WritePrivateProfileSection deletes the existing keys and values for the named section and inserts the key names and values in the buffer pointed to by the lpString parameter."

VB

Public Function WriteIniSection(ByVal Section As String, ByVal Values() As String, ByVal IniPath As String) As Boolean
   Dim s As String = ""
   For Each a As String In Values
      If a <> "" Then s &= a & ControlChars.NullChar
   Next
   s &= ControlChars.NullChar
   Return WritePrivateProfileSection(Section, s, IniPath) = 0
End Function

Except it doesn't overwrite - it appends.
I am using Windows7 64bit Framework 3.5. Is this why?

Posted 23-May-11 21:34pm

Stuart Nathan

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sid1 · Answer 1 · 2011-10-25T09:53:00

Solution 2

You are correct it does append.

did you find a solution to get it to overwrite ?

Posted 25-Oct-11 9:53am

sid1

Dave Rock · Answer 2 · 2012-02-14T12:03:00

It could be because of 64bit windows but I doubt it is because of .NET. This is because these are API calls into kernel32.dll and are handled outside of .NET (unmanaged code). I.E. The component responsible for actually writing to the INI file is outside of the scope of .NET.

There is probably some wonky way to force an overwite just like there is "special" behaviour for passing null values to WritePrivateProfileString etc...

Stuart Nathan · Answer 3 · 2012-02-18T08:10:00

Solution 4

My solution is to treat the ini files as ordinary files and parse them etc.

Posted 18-Feb-12 8:10am

Stuart Nathan

Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 4 · 2011-05-24T01:31:00

Solution 1

No, it's not because of 64-bit Windows or the .NET Framework.

I don't know why it's not working, but those .INI functions are only there for backwards compatibility. Why are you using .INI files in your app? They are an outdated concept. I would suggest using .XML files instead, if at all possible.

Posted 24-May-11 1:31am

Dave Kreskowiak

Comments

Stuart Nathan 24-May-11 7:34am

Because ini files caqn be easily read by Notepad and editted.
XML files are not so easy to edit, and neither is the Windows Registry which Microsoft recommend.

Dave Kreskowiak 24-May-11 7:51am

What does your Delcare statement look like for WritePrivateProfileSection?

Stuart Nathan 24-May-11 7:56am

Private Declare Ansi Function WritePrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias "WritePrivateProfileSectionA" (ByVal Section As String, ByVal Text As String, ByVal FileName As String) As Int32

Dave Kreskowiak 24-May-11 8:00am

Hmmm... it should be working. I can't test anything until I get to work.

Dave Kreskowiak 24-May-11 10:54am

I don't know what you're doing, but it's working as expected on .NET 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 as both x86 and AnyCPU on a Win7 x64 Enterprise machine.
<pre>Public Class Form1

Private Declare Ansi Function WritePrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias "WritePrivateProfileSectionA" (ByVal Section As String, ByVal Text As String, ByVal FileName As String) As Int32

Private Sub Button1_Click(sender As System.Object, e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Dim values(3) As String

values(0) = "NAME1=value1"
values(1) = "NAME2=value2"
values(2) = "NAME3=value3"
values(3) = "NAME4=value4"

MsgBox(WriteIniSection("TEST2", values, "C:\Test.ini").ToString)

End Sub

Public Function WriteIniSection(ByVal Section As String, ByVal Values() As String, ByVal IniPath As String) As Boolean
Dim s As String = ""
For Each a As String In Values
If a <> "" Then s &= a & ControlChars.NullChar
Next
s &= ControlChars.NullChar
Return WritePrivateProfileSection(Section, s, IniPath) = 0
End Function
End Class</pre>

It's not appending at all.

Stuart Nathan 25-May-11 6:06am

Thankyou for your trouble. I also don't understand it, but it does append and not over-write.
So I have gone back to first principles and I now read the file and write it back.
Thanks again.

Giblet67 12-Jun-12 21:15pm

You can get the Append (really it's Prepend) behavior by removing the "=" from the values array.
To get the Overwrite behavior, the values must include the "=".
This was with:
Private Declare Auto Function WritePrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32"( _
ByVal lpAppName As String, _
ByVal lpString As String, _
ByVal lpFileName As String _
) As Boolean