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Asked: 2026-05-22T19:37:24+00:00

I’m currently using a standard 4.0 Web Forms app (no dynamic data) and I’d

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I’m currently using a standard 4.0 Web Forms app (no dynamic data) and I’d like to try to make my site configuration as dynamic as possible.

I have a database table where each row represents a file type. I want to make a process where the site configuration is dynamic enough to handle and assimilate changes to its configuration based on changes to this table.

Currently I have a collection of entries in a configsection in my web.config file which represents a collection of file types. So maybe I’d have something like <add key="Pdf"> in a filetypes section if I want to be working with PDF files.

Each of these keys has an entry in my database, and I’m using an enum to map a friendly name/CLR object to the database value (integer). I like the way that I can then use this easily in a tag attribute e.g. <cc1:MyControl FileType="Pdf">, and I can use a combination of database data and additional attributes from web.config to allow Intellisense to really do its thing.

Problem is, this enum is hard-coded currently and I don’t know a good way to make this dynamic to handle future additions or deletions. As it stands, if I want to add a new file type I’d have to add a new row to the database, add an entry for it in the web.config, and then update the enum with the new ID. That’s okay for me, but it’s a bit manual and also I can’t speak for the ability of our support to follow that procedure.

I think what is causing a roadblock conceptually for me is the fact that instead of translating DB schema to CLR schema, I’m actually trying to convert a conglomeration of instances of a schema object to one type.

I am using entity framework so leveraging something in there is not a problem.

I was considering using xsd.exe, but as I’m not keen on scheduling it to run or calling it to refresh the schema, having fellow devs go through that process is probably more unwieldy than just updating the enum manually. However if there’s something I can do that route I am more than willing to check it out.

To clarify, I’m not really hung up on having this in web.config, this is just how I did it to get it to work nice and pretty-like in a hardcoded fashion.

Ideally, what I’d like to do is to have data that originates from the database auto-magically parsed and/or recognized, where I can just put its name or representation in plain English in a tag property. I’m thinking this is most likely going to look like some xml schema file that the client references.

If you have any suggestion, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks guys.

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  1. Editorial Team

    I ended up moving away from web.config. I could have made my own transform, but I decided to use a T4 template instead. I moved the data that was stored in web.config into fields in the database, then I used a T4 template to query the DB and get all of the rows and generate enumerated values for them. Then I created implicit operators to convert the enumerated type to an entity and vice versa, e.g. get{ return context.Where(myVar => myVar.myKey == (int) myEnumVal);

    So now my support doesn’t have to crack open the code, they just add a line in the database, and the design-time template will generate the new value(s).

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