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

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 rea开发者_运维技巧son 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?

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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.

---

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;

---

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

should work in asp.net.

---

Posting in case this helps anyone. I used this answer to be able to read an Umbraco configuration.

    private static string CdnUrl()
    {
        // Unit test vs web environment
        Configuration configuration;
        if (HttpContext.Current == null)
        {
            configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(null);
        }
        else
        {
            configuration = WebConfigurationManager.OpenWebConfiguration(HttpContext.Current.Request.ApplicationPath);
        }

        // Grab Umbraco config
        ConfigurationSectionGroup umbracoConfiguration = configuration.GetSectionGroup("umbracoConfiguration");
        FileSystemProvidersSection fileSystemProviders = (FileSystemProvidersSection)umbracoConfiguration.Sections.Get("FileSystemProviders");

        // Return the information needed
        var cdnUrl = fileSystemProviders.Providers["media"].Parameters["rootUrl"].Value;
        return cdnUrl;
    }