Question

I have a Config class like this:

public class MyConfig : ConfigurationSection
{
        [ConfigurationProperty("MyProperty", IsRequired = true)]
        public string MyProperty
        {
            get { return (string)this["MyProperty"]; }
            set { this["MyProperty"] = value; }
        }
}

And it is being instantiated by another class like this

(MyConfig)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("myConfig")

We are making some changes and are now storing the configuration file in the DB as an xml, exactly like it is currently in the config file.

I would like to maintain the MyConfig as a ConfigurationSection for backwards compatibility but still be able to instantiate it by using the XML string retrieved from the DB.

Is it possible? If so, how? (Keep in mind it should still work as instantiated above)

Answer 1

My suggestion would be to keep your current MyConfig class but load your XML from your database in the constructor, then in each property of your MyConfig, you can put in logic to determine where you get the value from (either database or .config file) if you need to pull config from either location, or have it fall back if the value is empty.

public class MyConfig : ConfigurationSection
{
    public MyConfig()
    {
        // throw some code in here to retrieve your XML from your database
        // deserialize your XML and store it 
        _myProperty = "<deserialized value from db>";
    }

    private string _myProperty = string.Empty;

    [ConfigurationProperty("MyProperty", IsRequired = true)]
    public string MyProperty
    {
        get
        {
            if (_myProperty != null && _myProperty.Length > 0)
                return _myProperty;
            else
                return (string)this["MyProperty"];
        }
        set { this["MyProperty"] = value; }
    }
}