C# Read <system.net><mailSettings> in web.config from external dll

Question

My web app calls an external dll. Within the dll I want to access the specifiedPickupDirectory pickupDirectoryLocation value within the system.net/mailSettings/smtp section. How can I grab it from within the dll code?

Something like

System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig("configuration/system.net/mailSettings/smtp/specifiedPickupDirectory/pickupDirectoryLocation")

but that doesn't work

Answer 1

You can use:

public string GetPickupDirectory()
{
    var config = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("system.net/mailSettings/smtp") as SmtpSection;

    return (config != null) ? config.SpecifiedPickupDirectory : null;
}

Answer 2

I guess you could simply use the PickupDirectoryLocation property.

// if .NET 4.0 don't forget that SmtpClient is IDisposable
SmtpClient client = new SmtpClient();
string pickupLocation = client.PickupDirectoryLocation;

This way you are not using magic strings in your code and it makes one less thing to worry about if in future versions of the framework this attribute changes name or location in the configuration file.