How to create custom web config?

Question

I need to create a configuration section in the web.config file. The config section look like this.

<component name="name1" title="title1" description="description1"/>
<component name="name2" title="title2" description="description2"/>
<component name="name3" title="title3" description="description3"/>

How to create such a configuration setting and how can I access the attributes in the config in c# code.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

1) Create a class and inherit from ConfigurationSection

public class ComponentCustomSection : ConfigurationSection

2) Add properties and flag them with the ConfigurationProperty attribute

        [ConfigurationProperty("name")]
        public string Name
        {
            get { return ((string)this["name"]); }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("title")]
        public string Title
        {
            get { return ((string)this["title"]); }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("description")]
        public string Description
        {
            get { return ((string)this["description"]); }
        }

3) Add the information of your custom config section in your config file (under the Configuration tag)

  <configSections>
    <section name="component" type="YourAssembly.ComponentCustomSection, YourAssembly"/>
  </configSections>

4) You can get the section using the following code

var section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("component")

Note that this would work with a single component tag.
If you need to have N tags, you should encapsulate them in a parent tag, like this

<components>
    <component name="name1" title="title1" description="description1"/>
    <component name="name2" title="title2" description="description2"/>
    <component name="name3" title="title3" description="description3"/>
</components>

Here is a nice article to get you started on custom configuration sections

Here is a question about having a customSection with child elements that should help you

i have tried this. but how can i get the value from the config in the code. since there are multiple attributes and multiple components — geothachankary, Apr 28 '15 at 07:36
see my edit, if you need multiple tags you have to encapsulate them — Sébastien Sevrin, Apr 28 '15 at 07:46
Hats off.. First step by step answer I got on internet.. your multiple tag links also helped me a lot.. You made my day.. Thanks a lot :) — C Sharper, Apr 16 '18 at 11:59

How to create custom web config?

1 Answers1