How to get an array from appsettings.json file in .Net 6? - arrays

Question

I've read this excellent SO post on how to get access to the appsettings.json file in a .Net 6 console app.
However, in my json file I have several arrays:
"logFilePaths": [
"\\\\server1\\c$\\folderA\\Logs\\file1.log",
"\\\\server2\\c$\\folderZ\\Logs\\file1A1.log",
"\\\\server3\\c$\\folderY\\Logs\\file122.log",
"\\\\server4\\c$\\folderABC\\Logs\\fileAB67.log"
],
And I get the results if I do something like this:
var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder().AddJsonFile($"appsettings.json", true, true);
var config = builder.Build();
string logFile1 = config["logFilePaths:0"];
string logFile2 = config["logFilePaths:1"];
string logFile3 = config["logFilePaths:2"];
But I don't want to have to code what is effectively an array into separate lines of code, as shown.
I want to do this:
string[] logFiles = config["logFilePaths"].Split(new char[] { '|' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);
But it gives me an error on config["logFilePaths"] saying it's null.
Why would that be null?

Answer 1

To access the logFilePaths as an array, you want to use the Get<T> extension method:
string[] logFilePaths = config.GetSection("logFilePaths").Get<string[]>();

Answer 2

One option is to install Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Binder nuget and use Bind (do not forget to setup CopyToOutputDirectory for appsettings.json):
var list = new List<string>();
config.Bind("logFilePaths", list);
Another - via GetSection (using the same nuget to bind a collection):
var list = config.GetSection("logFilePaths").Get<List<string>>();