Create and Use a Custom Config File
page 1 of 7
Published: 10 Aug 2005
Unedited - Community Contributed
Abstract
This article documents how to easily create a separate custom .config file for your ASP.NET application, and how to retrieve the custom configuration information using the existing framework ConfigurationSectionHandler.
by Steven Archibald
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Background Information

When you create a web project in Visual Studio, a standard configuration file, named Web.config, is automatically created for you. This file is actually an XML document file. For a greater understanding regarding the format of this file, read the Microsoft reference titled Format of ASP.NET Configuration Files. If you want to store application-wide configuration information in an external file, such as an SQL Server connection string, it is usually recommended that you add an <appSettings> section to your Web.config file and store your information in this ‘additional’ section. This works well if the information is fairly static, and is not subject to change outside of your control.

One of my clients wanted to have some application-wide information available for their website, namely release information in text format, but did not wish to put it in the web.config file. They have a separate department that is responsible for doing builds and releasing them to QA and Production. The one thing this department wanted to do was to place a simple text file in the root web directory that any page could then have available. I suggested using a custom .config file, named Release.config. Below, I document what goes in this custom .config file and then how to access its values using a simple static method in a utility class.

Most samples of custom application configuration processing that you find on the web document how to add sections to an existing Web.config file. That particular solution was not appropriate here since the department responsible for producing the information was not a development department.

The steps are fairly simple:

  1. Create our own custom .config file which is itself an XML document.
  2. Modify the standard Web.config file to reference our custom .config file.
  3. Create a utility method to extract the desired values from the custom .config file.
  4. Modify our application code to utilize the utility method.

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User Comments

Title: Thanks   
Name: Rauf
Date: 2009-12-22 7:03:28 AM
Comment:
Very useful article. keep the good work going
Cheers!!
Title: Thanks   
Name: Fawad
Date: 2009-11-20 10:22:09 AM
Comment:
Thanks buddy, loved the article. Here is a VB counterpart if anyone needs it:
===========================================================
********* Get Config Values ******************************
===========================================================
Public Shared Function GetConfigValue(ByVal strSectionName As String, ByVal strKeyName As String) As String

Dim temp As String = Nothing

Dim myData As NameValueCollection = DirectCast(ConfigurationManager.GetSection(strSectionName), _
NameValueCollection)

If myData Is Nothing Then
'Section name not found
Throw New NullReferenceException("Section name not found:" & strSectionName)
Else
'section found, try to get the value
temp = myData.Get(strKeyName)

If temp Is Nothing Then
'Key name not found, throw new exception
Throw New NullReferenceException("Key name not found: " & strKeyName)
End If
End If

End Function

===========================================================
**** Write Config Values (NOT TESTED BUT SHOULD WORK) ****
===========================================================

Public Shared Function UpdateConfigValue(ByVal strConfigFilePath As String, ByVal strSectionName As String, _
ByVal strKeyName As String, ByVal strValue As String) As Boolean

Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument
Dim flag As Boolean = False

xmlDoc.Load(strConfigFilePath)

For Each node As XmlNode In xmlDoc.Item(strSectionName)

'Look for add attribute
If node.Name = "add" Then

'see if we have specified key in config file
If node.Attributes.GetNamedItem("key").Value = strKeyName Then

'Key found, upd
Title: value not updated   
Name: monaung
Date: 2009-05-10 2:44:36 AM
Comment:
if i am chaging the value in appReleaseSection in Cutom.Config file it is not reflecting. it gives me previous entered value why?
please can you mail me back how can i do this?
mon.aung@gmail.com
Title: config file not web.config/app.config   
Name: sixYo
Date: 2009-04-07 12:51:29 AM
Comment:
you can store the data in a xml file without web.config / app.config

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/aspnet/CustomXmlConfigForAspNet.aspx
Title: Little Change   
Name: ACostaF
Date: 2008-04-18 9:51:47 AM
Comment:
Good article. In order to MSDN Library suggestion, you must use System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.GetSection instead of System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig as ConfigurationSettings is obsolete.
Title: Need your help   
Name: Sukki
Date: 2008-03-01 12:17:10 PM
Comment:
it works well for me but when i try to add a subsection it fails. How can i handle this
Title: Good One   
Name: Rajesh
Date: 2007-07-24 6:16:13 AM
Comment:
Thanks Steven Archibald, this article was good and helped me a lot.

In addition to this, i wanted to use Release.xml file rather than Release.config file. Is the code works same for the .xml file?

Anticipating your response.

Rajesh
Title: Thank you!   
Name: Chris Bidwill
Date: 2007-05-23 10:27:30 PM
Comment:
Thanks, this was a huge help. From all the other posts I've found out there it looked like creating custom sections was a huge pain (so much it was easier just to parse the xml doc). This saved me a lot of frustration.
Title: Good Work   
Name: Satyam Kumar
Date: 2006-10-18 3:04:39 PM
Comment:
Thanks to aspalliance team.

Nice work done by team that i was looking for long time.

If any addition or Enhancement then pls let me know.

Satyam
satyam@rategain.com
Title: Custom.Config File   
Name: Satyadeep Behera
Date: 2006-06-16 4:57:48 AM
Comment:
after updating the Custom.config file can i able to get the
new values that has been saved at run time, i have dataaccess layer and i want to fix this value here.
please help me.
Title: Custom.Config File   
Name: Satyadeep Behera
Date: 2006-06-15 3:21:08 AM
Comment:
but is if i am chaging the value in appReleaseSection in Cutom.Config file it is not reflecting it gives me previous entered value why?
please can you mail me back how can i do this?
bsatyadeep@zilog.com






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