Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Damir Dobric — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:17:39 GMT

This is right Todd. You do not have to. The idea of this example was to show how to do that behind the scene. For example, my requirement was to load the configuration from database or to collect information from several web services, put them together and create the dynamically configuration node.

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Todd Taylor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:05:11 GMT

I found-out that you don't need to define the "File" property if you want to use a linked configuration file (as shown in the sample code download).

Instead, add the attribute "configSource" which is part of the .NET Framework:

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Todd Taylor — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:19:46 GMT

Thank you, Damir, for posting this article and code sample. I was totally stuck with trying to create the appropriate classes for a rather complicated configuration file. Most of the code samples I found online were too basic to help me resolve the issues I was having. Thanks to your code sample, I was able to get my code working :o)

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Damir Dobric — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:44:38 GMT

Here is an example which shows how to read bindings by using of section path:

configuration.GetSection("system.serviceModel/bindings")

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Ed — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 15:28:28 GMT

Wow, you answered fast :) thanks :)

Yep, it helped :) I had to separate the 2 collections in separate Section properties... then I add manually a property (not ConfigurationProperty) that merges both, so my Logger class still works the same.

Just a little observation, at first it didn't load my values, searching in other sites I saw I still needed another thing to use them, guess you have that also somewhere your program but forgot to write it here:

_settings = (MySection) ConfigurationManager.GetSection("MySection");

Bye :)

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Damir Dobric — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 12:46:49 GMT

Hi Ed, you class is the usual one, but a little bit more tricky. The way you want to use class derivation reflected to the configuration is not well object oriented design.

In general, there are two ways to do that:

LogSettings

Destinations

FileDestination

DbDestination

WhatEverDestination

If you use the first one, it is not the typed one. In this case you would work provider specific (similar like ADO.NET). In this case the Destinations element would be a ConfigurationElementCollection. Destination element would be usual ConfigElement.

In the second case the Destinations element is a ConfigElement and all other DestinationXXX should be members of that element.

In boot cases, LogSettings could be a section.

Hope this help.

re: Extending .NET 2.0 Configuration

Ed — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 11:50:06 GMT

Hi, that's interesting for normal configuration sections, but mine isn't normal :D, I have an abstract class called Destination, and 2 derived classes called FileDestination and DbDestination so I can have a Destinations collection and call the abstract WriteEntry method for all Destinations.

Well, I'd like to use a config section similar to:

<Filename>filename</Filename>

</FileDestination>

<ConnectionString>connection string</ConnectionString>

<TableName>table</TableName>

</DbDestination>

</Destinations>

</LogSettings>

Is it possible? how??

Reading of WCF configuration

Damir Dobric Posts — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:32:07 GMT

Sometimes it is required to read the WCF specific information contained in the application's configuration