How to get the values of a ConfigurationSection of type NameValueSectionHandler

Question

Hello,

I'm working with C#, Framework 3.5 (VS 2008).

I'm using the ConfigurationManager to load a config (not the default app.config file) into a Configuration object.

using the Configuration class, i was able to get an ConfigurationSection, but i could not find a way to get the values of that section.

in the config, the ConfigurationSection is of type "System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler".

For what it worth, when i used the method "GetSection" of the ConfigurationManager (works only when it was on my default app.config file), i received an object type, that i could cast into collection of pairs of key-value, and i just received the value like a Dictionary. i could not do such cast when i received ConfigurationSection class from the Configuration class however.

Thanks alot, Liran.

EDIT:

Example of the config file:

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

  <MyParams>
    <add key="FirstParam" value="One"/>
    <add key="SecondParam" value="Two"/>
  </MyParams>
</configuration>

Example of the way i was able to use it when it was on app.config (the "GetSection" method is for the default app.config only):

NameValueCollection myParamsCollection =
             (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("MyParams");

Console.WriteLine(myParamsCollection["FirstParam"]);
Console.WriteLine(myParamsCollection["SecondParam"]);

Answer 1

Here's a good post that shows how to do it.

http://bloggingabout.net/blogs/jschreuder/archive/2006/07/07/Using-section-handlers-to-group-settings-in-the-configuration-file_2E00_.aspx

If you want to read the values from a file other than the app.config, you need to load it into the ConfigurationManager.

Try this method: ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration()

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.configuration.configurationmanager.openmappedexeconfiguration%28v=VS.90%29.aspx

There's an example of how to use it in the MSDN article.

Answer 2

Thank you MonkeyWrench,

so i undestand that there is a no "nice" way (nice = the word "XML" wont come up in my code) to read a group of key-value pairs from a config other then the app.config, without creating my own custom ConfigurationSection.. that just too bad.

Thanks again for your time, Liran.