External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Mark Lindell — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 15:12:35 GMT

Thanks. I was using the configSource method and dumped it due to not being able to use the Configuration tool.

You are right about the configuration APIs not being very well documented. Unfortunately, this goes for the EL as well. I've watched the web cast on the ObjectBuilder and configuration but it only scratches the surface of the configuration possiblities. I got lost in anything more than just a simple configuration and gave up. I already had a solution using a ConfigurationSectionHandler and couldn’t' spare the time to learn the intricate details of ObjectBuilder to accommodate my scenario.

I understand the benefit but the cost/benefit ratio is way to high to devote more time.

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

tomholl — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:34:35 GMT

Thanks for the feedback Mark. ObjectBuilder was a late addition to the scope of both EntLib and CAB and it isn't documented anywhere near as well as we'd have liked. Hopefully we'll be able to improve this in the future, but in the meantime you can post any questions or answers about ObjectBuilder at http://practices.gotdotnet.com/projects/objectbuilder

Tom

re: Read/Write App.config with .NET 2.0/Enterprise Library

Alois Kraus — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 00:19:05 GMT

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

J. Ambrose Little — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 21:05:29 GMT

Tom,

One of the caveats of using the configSource attribute is that it has to be a physical path in the same directory or a sub-directory of the application root (as I understand it). It's worth mentioning as this unfortunately eliminates, e.g., sharing config files over a UNC share.

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Mick Wood — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 04:46:09 GMT

Tom,

We use the confiSource attribute as you have discussed in your last example but as the post above points out, the external configuration sources having to reside in the application directory path or subdirectories. This is an unfortunate restriction on what otherwise is a pretty tidy solution.

Can you recommend a simple wrapper that can be placed over System.Configuration that would allow configuration sources outside of the application directory path to be used?

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Danny — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:04:18 GMT

Hi Tom,

Is it possible to read the XML config files from a memory stream instead of file ? I would like to configure the caching block at runtime without using any local config file.

Kind regards,
Danny

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Alois Kraus — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:34:40 GMT

Hi Tom,

I just wanted to add that I have patched the SqlConfigurationSource to make it work with every ConfigurationSection derived class. This enables me to import via a GUI every App.Config (not only the Enterprise Library Configuration sections) into SQL Server:

http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/articles/75391.aspx

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Eric Janson — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 14:43:14 GMT

Hi Tom:

I see what you're saying about multiple config files for 1 app, but what about multiple config files for multiple apps? I'm using an .exe that references another .dll, both being built from the same solution. However, DAAB in the .dll is only seeing the .exe's connection strings?!
Mind you, this is in debug mode...I assume when deployed, the .dll will look for the config file with it's own name, but I wonder how it's even working at all since the (copied) .dll that's actually being loaded is no longer in the directory with it's appropriate config file.
I tried copying the dll's config file to where the .exe is running, but it won't even look at it! it seems to insist on loading the .exe's!!

Is there no way to have multiple config files with multiple projects? I'm sure I'm missing something! (I'm assuming the latter to be the case ;)

Cheers

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

tomholl — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 19:24:12 GMT

Alois - way cool! Thanks - yet again - for putting this together and contributing to the community!

Eric - this is the default behavior with .NET and with Enterprise Library; configuration files are only associated with exe and web projects, not with DLLs. However by using a FileConfigurationSource with Enterprise Library you can associate the configuration with the DLL project. If you don't want to impose any requirements on the exe's configuration file, follow the example about "using several configuration sources" above (even if you only want to use one).

Tom

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Kian Boo — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:40:18 GMT

If i use configSource method, "you’ll need to do a bit of XML manipulation by hand" , any idea on how to write back the the external config file instead of write to the app.config?

thanks

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Eric Janson — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:58:09 GMT

Good stuff!

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

tomholl — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 19:13:20 GMT

Kian: The tool won't support this - it will always write the data back to the app.config file. If you want to use the configSource technique, you'll need to add this attribute by hand and move the code from app.config to the external file.

Tom

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Kian Boo — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 05:29:34 GMT

Thanks Tom,
But may i know what attribute you mean for? is it those XML Attribute?

thanks again

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Kian Boo — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 05:33:07 GMT

Sorry for not clarify what i intend to do. I will like to store my custom object into my custom configuration file. And i will use own configuration tool to save the configured object.

thanks

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Darin — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 06:13:27 GMT

So is it possible to store my own application settings in a file located on a unc share using the file configuration source, or is that only to store the Ent Lib application block's configuration?

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Gerry — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 13:33:33 GMT

Is there anyway to load you configuration without having to derive a class of ConfigurationSection. configSource on relative path isn't that great!.

I assumed Entlib would support IConfigurationSectionHandler in 2.0?

IConfigurationSource source =
ConfigurationSourceFactory.Create("MyFileSection");

MyConfigurationSection section =
source.GetSection("Persistence") as MyConfigurationSection;

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Alois Kraus — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:02:28 GMT

Hi Gerry,

the Enteprise Library shows the best practices for the NET 2.0 platform which includes not to use any deprecated interfaces. As you might have noticed the IConfigurationSource interface has been deprecated with .NET 2.0 and should therefore not be used in new applications.

Yours,
Alois Kraus

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Gerry — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 22:52:41 GMT

I assume you mean IConfigurationSectionHandler is deprecated in 2.0 and not IConfigurationSource, as FileConfigurationSource has the interface IConfigurationSource in EntLib 2.0. Mixed views on whether or not 'IConfigurationSectionHandler' is actually deprecated in 2.0, it isn't obselete and different web pages give support for it in 2.0! I want to load my configuration using Tom's distributed files as above which they all return a ConfigurationSection element and not Object as with IConfigurationSectionHandler. configSource limits development to relative path, this isn't good but using 'File Configuration Source' section to define external file to load configuration from (filePath="") is fantastic but these objects must return a typeof(ConfigurationSection).

Do I really want to define my xml configuration using attribute based programming, ConfigurationSection, ConfigurationElement, ConfigurationElementCollection,etc and define ConfigurationProperty attributes of class getters/setters, it works a treat but the above distributed config loading, mixed with standard type deserialization is a much better way and less configuration especially when implementing IXmlSerializable. At less I could use xsd.exe type generation.

I came up with this below to bypass defining classes as ConfigurationElements, ConfigurationElementCollection and implemented IXmlSerializable or xsd type generation which gives me the class using configurationSection without all the work and also the above do not support generic types and your collections are just an array list under the hood, where my requirement is to be more specfic and to hold dictionary<String, class>. Making these support generics <T> would have been good. Obviously you can place you own instance of Dictionary and write/read from it overriding the base implementation.

This below will let me use 2.0 way to load configuration, returning a derived class of ConfigurationSection, deserializing my object as I wish and providing a method to retrieve the internal deserialized class. It obviously ignores the new way kinda.

public class StatementConfigSection : ConfigurationSection
{
private MyClass _myClass;

public StatementConfigSection()
: base()
{
}

protected override void DeserializeSection(System.Xml.XmlReader reader)
{
XmlSerializer serialiser = new XmlSerializer(typeof(MyClass));
_myClass = serialiser.Deserialize(reader) as MyClass;
}
public MyClass GetMyClass()
{
return _myClass;
}
}

I also didn't like the way it spat out the 'Add' as below.
<Names>
<Add forename =""/>
</Names>

Below is much better, I assume you can override the Serialise somewhere to write out as below? If you know how that would be cool!
<Names>
<Name forename=""/>
</Names>

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Peter Hurford — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 17:25:02 GMT

Thanks Tom, this is good stuff. I feel I'm a lot closer to my solution but not quite there yet.

Here's my problem:

I have application x.exe. It calls a class library y.dll.

y.dll needs access to config data. Its not appropriate to put it in the exe's config since (a) logically, the type of data doesn't fit, and (b) practically, y.dll could be used by any executable which needed the functionality.

So I need at runtime for code in y.dll to run to y.dll.config for its configuration data.

You seem to have a scenario above that fits this, but I'd like to add a twist - I'd like to do it without using the Enterprise Library classes (just so I have less to worry about deploying). Possible?

Sorry if this seems to be a dumb question but I can find very little documentation out there for what (until I started using .net) I would have thought was a pretty trivial problem.

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

tomholl — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 19:05:31 GMT

Peter - the examples that use the FileConfigurationSource should help in your scenario. If you decide not to deploy the EntLib DLLs, you can still copy the approach used in the FileConfigurationSource. The key part is the call to ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration (which despite its name, will open any configuration file, not just one for an .exe).

Hope this helps
Tom

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Ed — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 21:01:51 GMT

I tried using this approach with a CAB app and a WSE 3.0 app (the QuickStarts) and I assume they failed since these App Blocks don't use IConfigurationSource. Are there plans to incorporate the use of IConfigurationSource across the board so this approach can be used consistently with the Ent Lib infrastructure?

re: External configuration files in Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0

Ed — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 18:43:06 GMT

My last post may not have been clear, I refer to attempting to using FileConfigurationSource to put config info in a file other than app.config. It appears that the CompositeUI library & WebServicesConfiguration class don't use IConfigurationSource, so all config data must reside in app.config.

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