Retrieving a conection string from the app.config file is a pretty simple matter - but it always take me 15 minutes to find the code...
There are two places that you can easily place config info in the app.config - the appSettings section and the connectionStrings section.
The first thing to do is to set a reference to SYSTEM.CONFIGURATION in VB. If you don't do this, you won't be able to retrieve your code.
appSettings:
<configuration>
<configSections>
...
</configSections>
<appSettings>
<add key="live" value="somevalue" />
<add key="dev" value="some other value" />
</appSettings>
Be sure that you place your code after the configSections node...
Now retrieve the values like this:
Dim strConnect As String = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("live")
connectionStrings:
<connectionStrings> <add name="connect" connectionString="Data Source=myServer;User Id=myUserID;Password=myPass;Initial Catalog=NORTHWIND" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</
connectionStrings>
This code will then retrieve the connection string:
Dim strConnect As String = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("connect")
As always, your comments are welcome