Does Mono support StringCollections in user settings?

Question

I've been working on a Winforms application that currently contains a System.Collections.Specialized.StringCollection user setting. On Windows, this code works to update and save the setting:

private void UpdateDirList() {
  Properties.Settings.Default.SearchDirs.Clear();
  Properties.Settings.Default.SearchDirs.AddRange(_searchDirs.ToArray());
  Properties.Settings.Default.Save();
}

The relevant excerpt from user.config on a Windows machine:

<setting name="SearchDirs" serializeAs="Xml">
  <value>
    <ArrayOfString xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
      <string>C:\projects\a</string>
      <string>C:\projects\b</string>
    </ArrayOfString>
  </value>
</setting>

When trying to run the same application under Mono, the <ArrayOfString> element is missing, even when I've verified that the Properties.Settings.Default.SearchDirs object does contain paths:

<setting name="SearchDirs" serializeAs="Xml">
  <value />
</setting>

Does Mono not support StringCollection? Am I using it incorrectly?

Answer 1

Hm, I worked once with C# for Mono/Linux and Windows. It is not always the same!

I wonder why you use ToArray() at all - needed? And not ToList()? Does it work? List is IMHO preferred today, it can be used as IEnumerable and IList etc. ...

A workaround is sometimes needed - directories can be easily written as one string, separated by eg '|'- that is a character not allowed in a path - neither in Linux nor Windows.

var searchDirsCsv = string.Join("|", _searchDirs);
_searchDirs = searchDirsCsv.Split('|);

What do you think?