does mvc support inheritance of Web.config settings throughout areas?

Question

I distributed my MVC code into a few different areas and noticed one thing. if I have something in the main Web.config, something like:

  <system.web.webPages.razor>
     <pages pageBaseType="System.Web.Mvc.WebViewPage">
       <namespaces>
         <add namespace="System.Collections.Generic" />

those pages that don't belong to the root area know nothing about that. And I have to repeat the same thing in the inner Web.config, the one that sits in the area folder.

How come?

Answer 1

web.config inherit but only to subfolders. ~/Areas is a separate folder from ~/Views so what you put in ~/Areas/SomeAreaName/Views/web.config has nothing in common with what you put in ~/Views/web.config. And because Razor ignores the namespaces section in ~/web.config you kinda need to repeat it for areas.

In summary you have:

• ~/Views/web.config
• ~/Areas/SomeAreaName/Views/web.config

which are two completely distinct folders and sections in them cannot be inherited.

Answer 2

I created a function to do this which will use the area web.config if the user is using the area otherwise will use the root web.config:

public static T GetWebConfigSection<T>(Controller controller, string sectionName) where T : class
        {
            T returnValue = null;
            String area = null;

            var routeArea = controller.RouteData.DataTokens["area"];

            if(routeArea != null)
                area = routeArea.ToString();

            System.Configuration.Configuration configFile = null;

            if (area == null)
            {
                // User is not in an area so must be at the root of the site so open web.config
                configFile = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("/");
            }
            else
            {
                // User is in an Area, so open the web.config file in the Area/views folder (e.g. root level for the area)
                configFile = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration("/Areas/" + area + "/Views");
            }

            if (configFile != null)
                returnValue = configFile.GetSection(sectionName) as T;

            return returnValue;
        }

And then call:

ForestSettings forestSettings = ConfigFunctions.GetWebConfigSection<ForestSettings>(controller, "myCompanyConfiguration/forestSettings");