Storing data with SharedPreferences

Sometimes, an app needs to store data after it closes so that it can be retrieved later. This data is often very simple, so a database may be unnecessary.

How to do it...

There are two parts to using the ISharedPreferences instance: read and write. Both are similar but write has a few extra steps. Let's take a look at the following extra steps included:

1. In order to either read from or write to the preferences, we have to first obtain the preferences by name:

   ISharedPreferences prefs = GetSharedPreferences(
     "MyPreferences", FileCreationMode.Private);

2. Once we have the preferences, we can simply query a value using a key along with a default value:

   if (prefs.Contains("MyKey")) {
     int myIntValue = prefs.GetInt("MyKey", 0);
   }

3. To write values to the preferences, we request the ability to edit it using the Edit() method of the instance:

   ISharedPreferences prefs = GetSharedPreferences(
     PreferencesName, FileCreationMode.Private...