How to open a SectionGroup in an ASP.NET web application?

Question

I have a small ASP.NET web application hosted in an integration test (executing within NUnit). My product code can usually find configuration data from the web.config or app.config file, but for some reason when hosting ASP.NET I seem to get an ArgumentException when executing the first of these commands:

var configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(null);
return configuration.GetSectionGroup(SectionGroupName);

exePath must be specified when not running inside a stand alone exe.

I don't know what to put here. There isn't a sensible exePath for my product to ever pass into this method as a parameter as it usually runs within a web server. Also, ordinary Sections (not SectionGroups) can typically be opened using:

ConfigurationManager.GetSection(SectionName)

even within unit tests this works, where an App.config file somehow magically gets read. That's what I'd like when reading SectionGroups.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

ConfigurationManager.GetSection("SectionGroupName/GroupName")

i.e. e.g.

<configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="RFERL.Mvc" type="System.Configuration.ConfigurationSectionGroup, System.Configuration, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a">
        <section name="routes" type="RFERL.Mvc.Configuration.RoutesConfigurationSection, RFERL.Mvc"/>
    </sectionGroup> 
</configSections>

&

var config = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("RFERL.Mvc/routes") as RoutesConfigurationSection;

Answer 2

Inside the web application, try using WebConfigurationManager. You will need a mechanism to detect if you are in a web context or exe context and use some design pattern to switch between contexts. A simple way to do this is check if HttpContext.Current is null (not null indicates web context and a null value indicates a exe context).

IMO, something like this should work,

        Configuration configuration;
        if (HttpContext.Current == null)
            configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(null); // whatever you are doing currently
        else
            configuration = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(HttpContext.Current.Request.ApplicationPath); //this should do the trick

        configuration.GetSectionGroup(sectionGroupName);

It will be more complex if you don't want the dependency on the System.web dll

I haven't tested it.

Answer 3

System.Configuration.Configuration config =
    ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
return config.GetSectionGroup(SectionGroupName);

should work in asp.net.