Console application calling datalayer throws an exception "The type initializer for threw an exception."

Question

I have simple 3 tier web application and have mostly CRUDE functionalities. Recently I required to add new console application to the existing solution in which I call data layer methods for retrieving data from DB but I get an exception "The type initializer for threw an exception." When I debugged I found that the exception is thrown at datalayer on first line of class where I get connectionstring from web.config, the code is
public static readonly string CONNECT_STRING = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["DbConnectString"].ConnectionString;

Now if I hardcode the connection string value like public static readonly string CONNECT_STRING = "Data Source=XYZ;uid=sa;password=XXX;initial catalog=ABC;"

it works fine.I don't understand what is the issue here as web application works fine with this datalayer. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Console apps do not have web.config. It needs an 'app.config'.

Answer 2

A console app can read a web.config

ConnectionStringSettingsCollection connections = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings;
    foreach (ConnectionStringSettings connection in connections)
    {


    }