Question

I have a ConfigElement with decorated property indicating if it is required or a key. I would like to make this a key, but how do I generate a key so I don’t have to depend on the user to come up a unique key? I tried putting Guid.NewGuid(), but it gave an error saying the default value has to be a constant:

An attribute argument must be a constant expression, 
typeof expression or array creation expression of an attribute parameter type

Here is what my class looks like:

public class MyEntryElement : ConfigElement
{
    #region Constructor

    public MyEntryElement(ConfigElement parent)
        : base(parent)
    {
    }

    #endregion

    #region Properties

    [ConfigurationProperty("id", DefaultValue = Guid.NewGuid(), IsRequired = true, IsKey = true)]
    [ObjectInfo(Title = "ID", Description = "Defines the id of the entry.")]
    public string ID
    {
        get
        {
            return (string)this["id"];
        }
        set
        {
            this["id"] = value;
        }
    }

    [ConfigurationProperty("note", DefaultValue = "", IsRequired = true)]
    [ObjectInfo(Title = "Note", Description = "Defines the note of the entry.")]
    public string Note
    {
        get
        {
            return (string)this["note"];
        }
        set
        {
            this["note"] = value;
        }
    }

Answer 1

How about setting it in your constructor:

    public MyEntryElement(ConfigElement parent)
        : base(parent)
    {
        if ( String.IsNullOrEmpty(ID) )
        {
            ID = Guid.NewGuid().ToString();
        }
    }