Custom app.config Config Section Handler

Question

What is the correct way to pick up the list of "pages" via a class that inherits from System.Configuration.Section if I used a app.config like this?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration>    <configSections>     <section name="XrbSettings" type="Xrb.UI.XrbSettings,Xrb.UI" />   </configSections>    <XrbSettings>     <pages>       <add title="Google" url="http://www.google.com" />       <add title="Yahoo" url="http://www.yahoo.com" />     </pages>   </XrbSettings>  </configuration> 

Answer 1

First you add a property in the class that extends Section:

[ConfigurationProperty("pages", IsDefaultCollection = false)] [ConfigurationCollection(typeof(PageCollection), AddItemName = "add")] public PageCollection Pages {     get {         return (PageCollection) this["pages"];     } } 

Then you need to make a PageCollection class. All the examples I've seen are pretty much identical so just copy this one and rename "NamedService" to "Page".

Finally add a class that extends ObjectConfigurationElement:

public class PageElement : ObjectConfigurationElement {     [ConfigurationProperty("title", IsRequired = true)]     public string Title {         get {             return (string) this["title"];         }         set {             this["title"] = value;         }     }      [ConfigurationProperty("url", IsRequired = true)]     public string Url {         get {             return (string) this["url"];         }         set {             this["url"] = value;         }     } } 

Here are some files from a sample implementation:

• Sample config
• Collection and element classes
• Config section class