Moving IIS7 url rewrite section out of the web.config file

Question

I have made a config section in my web.config file that has all rewrite rules like the following

<rewrite>
        <outboundRules>
            <rule name="OutboundRewriteCatalogURL" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1">
                <match filterByTags="A" pattern="^(.*/)Catalog\.aspx\?Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                <action type="Rewrite" value="{R:1}ctlg/{R:2}/{R:3}/" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="OutboundRewriteCategoryURL" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1">
                <match filterByTags="A" pattern="^(.*/)ProductList\.aspx\?Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Category=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                <action type="Rewrite" value="{R:1}categ/{R:2}/{R:3}/{R:4}/" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="OutboundRewriteFullProductURL" preCondition="ResponseIsHtml1">
                <match filterByTags="A, Form, Img" pattern="^(.*/)Product\.aspx\?Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Category=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Product=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;(?:amp;)?Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                <action type="Rewrite" value="{R:1}prd/{R:2}-{R:3}-{R:4}/{R:5}/" />
            </rule>
            <preConditions>
                <preCondition name="ResponseIsHtml1">
                    <add input="{RESPONSE_CONTENT_TYPE}" pattern="^text/html" />
                </preCondition>
            </preConditions>
        </outboundRules>
        <rules>
            <rule name="RedirectCatalogURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^Catalog\.aspx$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_METHOD}" pattern="^POST$" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="^Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Redirect" url="Catalog/{C:1}/{C:2}" appendQueryString="false" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="RewriteCatalogURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^ctlg/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="Catalog.aspx?Catalog={R:1}&amp;Title={R:2}" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="RedirectCategoryURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^ProductList\.aspx$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_METHOD}" pattern="^POST$" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="^Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Category=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Redirect" url="categ/{C:1}/{C:2}/{C:3}" appendQueryString="false" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="RewriteCategoryURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^categ/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="ProductList.aspx?Catalog={R:1}&amp;Category={R:2}&amp;Title={R:3}" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="RedirectProductURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^Product\.aspx$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_METHOD}" pattern="^POST$" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{QUERY_STRING}" pattern="^Catalog=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Category=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Product=([^=&amp;]+)&amp;Title=([^=&amp;]+)$" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Redirect" url="prd/{C:1}-{C:2}-{C:3}/{C:4}" appendQueryString="false" />
            </rule>
            <rule name="RewriteProductURL" stopProcessing="true">
                <match url="^prd/([^/]+)-([^/]+)-([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$" />
                <conditions>
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsFile" negate="true" />
                    <add input="{REQUEST_FILENAME}" matchType="IsDirectory" negate="true" />
                </conditions>
                <action type="Rewrite" url="Product.aspx?Catalog={R:1}&amp;Category={R:2}&amp;Product={R:3}&amp;Title={R:4}" />
            </rule>
        </rules>
    </rewrite>

Its very nice and working good but I dont want to have all these stuff in the web.config file , is there a way to have rewrite configuration in an external config file?

Answer 1

You can split your configuration into several files and include the parts into the main web.config file using the configSource attribute, e.g:

web.config:

  <system.web>
    ...
    <profile configSource="profile.config" />
    ...
  </system.web>

profile.config:

<profile>
  <properties>
    <add name="Name" type="String" />
    <add name="Age" type="Int32" />
  </properties>
</profile>

See this blog post or this question for more information.