How to add a xml in web.config?

Question

I have some complex data which is used for application configuration in xml format. I want to keep this xml string in web.config. Is it possible to add a big xml string in web.config and get it in code everywhere?

Answer 1

If you don't want to write a configuration section handler, you could just put your XML in a custom configuration section that is mapped to IgnoreSectionHandler:

<configuration>
    <configSections>
      <section 
          name="myCustomElement" 
          type="System.Configuration.IgnoreSectionHandler" 
          allowLocation="false" />
    </configSections>
    ...
    <myCustomElement>
        ... complex XML ...
    </myCustomElement>
    ...
</configuration>

You can then read it using any XML API, e.g. XmlDocument, XDocument, XmlReader classes. E.g.:

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
doc.Load(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.SetupInformation.ConfigurationFile);
XmlElement node = doc.SelectSingleNode("/configuration/myCustomElement") as XmlElement;
... etc ...