Question

Here is the task I have been given at work. We have a Web Application for which I created a Console Application that can be executed by the Scheduled Tasks on a daily basis. The task I have be presented with is to discover if we can place the ConApp.exe and the ConApp.exe.config in two different directories (folders) in our application. We would like to place the .exe file in the bin folder with all the .dll’s and place the .exe.config file in a central configurations folder. I have been looking around in the properties and such with in Visual Studio and I do not see any options that will allow me to specify to the ConApp.exe the location of the ConApp.exe.config.

Is there a way to place these two files in separate folders or do they need to be in the same folder and have the .exe.confing reference a central .config file?

Thanks, 🙂

Answer 1

So with help from Fredrik Mork I was able to figure out this solution. First of all when you create your Console Applications, DO NOT, create any setting in the projects properties window. This will create an app.config file in your project which I believe the executable will try to look for and crash if it doesn’t find it. When you first create the Console Application and then Build it before writing any code. Visual Studio create the Debug folder with just the executable file and a few supporting files. I then placed this code in the “main” function:

Dim fileMap As ExeConfigurationFileMap = New ExeConfigurationFileMap()

fileMap.ExeConfigFilename = "....../AppName.config"

Dim externalConfig As Configuration = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None)

Dim appS As AppSettingsSection = externalConfig.Sections("appSettings")

Dim reportURL As String = appS.Settings("URL").Value

Console.Writeline(reportURL)

In the 2nd line “fileMap.ExeConfigFilename = “……/AppName.exe.config” then “……” represent the full pathname to the config file and AppName is the name of your file. Now I also tried to copy the code from my original Console Application and run it but it still crashed. I think it is due to the .dlls that I am using which make calls to Stored Procedures on the database. I believe these dlls are looking for the .config file to be in the same folder since that is the way they were built. However, if you are careful when you begin writing your application you can utilize Web.config information like I did above.