Setting up App.Config with custom xml tags

Question

Currently, having some issues with setting this up properly. I have done a lot of reading on this on the web and tried multiple configurations with different code but for the following custom xml tags I cannot seem to get it working correctly. Can someone provide some feedback on how to tackle this? I want to access this outside from some other class and iterate through each "trackInfo" tags looking for a certain key. The last snippet of code is where I am trying to extract the elements and save them as variables

Things I am looking for: - what am I missing? - how do i access in an outside class?

App.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="trackLog" type="Tracking.TrackConfigSection,   Tracking" />
  </configSections>

  <trackLog>
    <trackInfo key="DEV1" env="dev1" url="http://dev1.com" />
    <trackInfo key="DEV2" env="dev2" url="http://dev2.com" />
  </trackLog>
</configuration>

TrackConfigSection.cs

public class TrackConfigSection : ConfigurationSection
{
    private const string SectionName = "trackLog";

    public TrackConfigSection()
    {
        base[""] = new TrackConfigCollection();
    }

    [ConfigurationProperty("", IsRequired = true, IsKey = false, IsDefaultCollection = true)]
    public TrackConfigCollection TrackConfigs
    {
                get { return ((TrackConfigCollection)(base[""])); }
                set { base[""] = value; }
    }

    public static TrackConfigCollection GetTrackConfigs()
    {
        return ((TrackConfigSection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection(SectionName)).TrackConfigs;
    }
}

TrackConfigCollection.cs

[ConfigurationCollection(typeof(TrackConfigEntry), CollectionType = ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap)] 
        public class TrackConfigCollection : ConfigurationElementCollection
        {
            const string ItemName = "trackInfo";

            public override ConfigurationElementCollectionType CollectionType
            {
                get 
                { 
                    return ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap; 
                }
            }

            protected override object GetElementKey(ConfigurationElement element)
            {
                return ((TrackConfigEntry)element).Key;
            }

            protected override ConfigurationElement CreateNewElement()
            {
                return new TrackConfigEntry();
            }

            public new TrackConfigEntry this[string key]
            {
                get 
                { 
                    return (TrackConfigEntry)BaseGet(key); 
                }
            }

            public bool Contains(string role)
            {
                return BaseGetAllKeys().Contains(role);
            }

        }

TrackConfigEntry.cs

public class TrackConfigEntry : ConfigurationElement
{
    [ConfigurationProperty("key", IsRequired = true)]
    public string Key 
    { 
        get { return (string)base["key"]; } 
    }

    [ConfigurationProperty("env", IsRequired = true)]
    public string env 
    { 
        get { return (string)base["env"]; } 
    }

    [ConfigurationProperty("url", IsRequired = true)]
    public string url 
    { 
        get { return (string)base["url"]; } 
    }
}

Accessing from some other class

var envName = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["env"];
// the envName is in the tags in the app.config
if (TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfigs().Contains(envStringName))
{
string temp1 = TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfig("key").ToString(); // variable to get key
                    string temp2 = TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfig("env").ToString(); // variable to get env
                    string temp3 = TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfig("url").ToString(); // variable to get url
}

Is the type correct? That doesn't seem to be a right assembly/type name pattern. — Daniel A. White
– Daniel A. White, Commented Jun 11, 2014 at 13:15
well i have a "Tracking" namespace with other classes using it too — Masterminder
– Masterminder, Commented Jun 11, 2014 at 13:33
ie, instead of type="Tracking.TrackConfigSection, TrackConfigSection" it should be type="Tracking.TrackConfigSection,name_of_assembly" where name of assembly is the assembly in which TrackConfigSection lives without the .dll at the end — wal
– wal, Commented Jun 11, 2014 at 13:37

Suresh · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-11 21:13:36Z

1

Apart from the comment from @wal about fixing the assembly name in the configSection. You should also override ElementName property in your TrackConfigCollection class. Add the following to your TrackConfigCollection class:

protected override string ElementName
{
    get { return ItemName; }
}

Refer to this excellent article for more reading on custom Configuration

EDIT

var key = "DEV1"; 
if(TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfigs().Contains(key))
{
    var config = TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfigs()[key];
    var env = config.env;
    var url = config.url;
}

edited Jun 11, 2014 at 21:13

answered Jun 11, 2014 at 13:39

Suresh

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4 Comments

Suresh Over a year ago

and it still doesn't work? You getting any exceptions?

Masterminder Over a year ago

correct, it still does not work, does that snippet of code posted at the end of my question seem like it works?

Suresh Over a year ago

it does seem to work for me. Code from my sample: var env = "DEV1"; var config = TrackConfigSection.GetTrackConfigs().Contains(env);

Masterminder Over a year ago

Yes that if statement works, but how do I go about extracting the "env" and the "url" for the tag that has the key="DEV1"? (like the correct functions to use)

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