C# - Re-initialize static class?

Question

I have a class in a web application I am working on that holds client settings. For some background, I do not own this class, and changing it is not an option. We recently added some logic to store the settings in a database, and I was tasked with creating a page to edit them, fair enough.

Here is my issue; the settings are held in a static class, and are themselves static, read-only properties. For example

public static class Settings
{
 public static readonly setting1 = SettingmanagerClass.GetSetting("setting1");
 public static readonly setting2 = SettingmanagerClass.GetSetting("setting2");
 public static readonly setting3 = SettingmanagerClass.GetSetting("setting3");
}

Now, for example, through the page I wrote, we change the value for setting2 to "Happy Variable"; it saves to the DB just fine, but now I need it to be reflected in the web app as the new value. Since it is a static readonly property of a static class, it only ever gets called when the app first wires up and can't be set manually.

Just to reiterate, I don't own the original class, so "just make the properties writeable" is not (currently) a valid option. Normally I would just talk this over with my boss and he would make a judgement call and possibly allow me to modify the other class, but I am not in a position to make that call and he is out of the office for the week.

So basically; is there any way to re-initialize a static class once a web application has started running? I just need for it to reload all of its properties as if the app was just rebuilt and started up again.

Answer 1

  ConstructorInfo constructor = typeof(Settings).GetConstructor(BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic,null, new Type[0], null);
  constructor.Invoke(null, null);