Get Section Names Programmatically from App.config C#

Question

Is there a way to programmatically get the section names by doing a loop instead of hard coding the names yourself?

For instance:

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="Test1"  type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
    <section name="Test2" type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
  </configSections>

Hardcoding:

var section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("Test1") as NameValueCollection;
var section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("Test2") as NameValueCollection;

I do not want to hard code the Test1 and Test2 section names in the code.

Is this of help : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4670669/how-do-you-use-sections-in-c-sharp-4-0-app-config — PaulF, Jul 16 '15 at 15:08
so I have to use a sectionGroup and assign a specific sectionGroup name to do it? is there a way to avoid any hard coding of the names? — my779, Jul 16 '15 at 18:30
You don't need to use a section group - but the sections are included with all sections used in the application - so finding the ones specific to you would be more difficult. Using a sectionGroup you only get the sections you created but you may have to hard code that, or at least give it some easily identifiable name (application name as prefix ?? - could do that with section namesif you don't group them) I haven't used the ConfigurationManager enough to know if there are any easier ways. (If you are looking in the debugger the names are in the Keys section). — PaulF, Jul 17 '15 at 08:57

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 17 '15 at 13:02

You can get the section group names like this:

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string configPath = @"..\..\App.config";
        var map = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
        map.ExeConfigFilename = configPath;
        var config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(map, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
        for (int i = 0; i < config.SectionGroups.Count; i++)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(config.SectionGroups[i].SectionGroupName);
        }
    }

Get Section Names Programmatically from App.config C#

1 Answers1