How to use IronPython with App.Config?

Question

I have a class library that is usually called from a .net console or web application. It integrates with various components, and relies on an app.config or web.config.

If I want to utilise the class library from script (i.e. IronPython), how can I get the script to utilise the config file? Ideally I want to be able to choose the config file when I run the script, or by convention (config file sitting alongside the script file).

I don't want to change the ipy.exe.config if possible as this wouldn't scale for multiple configurations without having multiple copies of IronPython?

Any alternatives?

Answer 1

Translating this blog post into Python, this should work:

import clr
import System.AppDomain
System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetData(“APP_CONFIG_FILE”, r”c:\your\app.config”)

Answer 2

You can always include additional sections within config files. In your ipy.exe.config file you can add an include to import external config settings; say myApp.config.

In a batch/command file you can always copy over a specific .config set into myApp.config and therefore run with different config files on demand.

Have a peek at this blog on how to achieve this; http://weblogs.asp.net/pwilson/archive/2003/04/09/5261.aspx

Answer 3

You can look at the System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager class. More specifically, OpenMappedExeConfiguration method will allow you to load any .config file of your choice. This will give you a Configuration object which exposes the standard AppSettins, ConnectionStrings, SectionGroups and Sections properties.

This approach requires you to pass the name of the config file to your script as a command line argument or to have a code logic to choose the .config file at run-time.

I know no Python, so I would refrain from attempts to post sample code. :-)

Answer 4

For a workaround what I did was fill the AppSettings collection for the ConfigurationManager static class "manually", so I created a PY Script and run an "import" of it on IronPython and the settings then will be available for the class library. However I couldn assing values to the ConnectionStrings collection :(

my script looks like this

import clr
clr.AddReferenceToFileAndPath(r'c:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\System.configuration.dll')
from System.Configuration import *
ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["settingA"] = "setting A value here"
ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["settingB"] = "setting B value here"

It would be nice though to know a way to "load" a custom .config file to the ConfigurationManager class.