Web.config Configsource and file attributes not applied when unit testing - c#

I have a Appsettings type initializer in my main project, which gets strings from appSettings in my web.config file. This appSettings section and my connectionStrings section use attributes like configSource, file to reference values.
It all works, except for when my unit testing project tries to test it.
An error is thrown in the type appSettings type initializer, that the appSettings/connectionStrings values in web.config aren't defined.
How can I get my Applicaton to intiailize properly so the web.config is accessible?
Do I need to initialize an instance my main project ( the MVCApplication )?
It's causing Entity framework to have no connection string also, cause value not set in web.config

I suggest adding an App.config to your Unit test project and reference your /Configs/AppSettings.local.config within your app.config.
<configuration>
<appSettings file='/Configs/AppSettings.local.config' />
</configuration>

Related

Connection string from Web.Config not read by ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Test"].ConnectionString

I have a connection string in my Web.Config file:
<configuration>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="Test" connectionString="MyConnString"/>
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>
And am trying to access it in my code like this:
string connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Test"].ConnectionString;
Why am I receiving this error?
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an
object.
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["Test"] is NULL but I can't figure out why.
I am using ASP.NET Core 3.1
I installed System.Configuration.Configuration version 6.0.0 using NuGet.
I have the correct using statement at the top of my code file: using System.Configuration;
ASP.NET Core no longer uses the Global.asax and web.config files that
previous versions of ASP.NET utilized.
The web.config file has also been replaced in ASP.NET Core.
Configuration itself can now be configured, as part of the application
startup procedure described in Startup.cs. Configuration can still
utilize XML files, but typically ASP.NET Core projects will place
configuration values in a JSON-formatted file, such as
appsettings.json.
Read the following article: Migrate configuration to ASP.NET Core
So, you can rename the web.config to app.config.
But better solution is to update application to use JSON-formatted file, such as appsettings.json. For more information read the following article: Configuration in ASP.NET Core

Couldn't take value from web.config from other project

I have added web.Config file in my main project (where exe file resides), I need to access a value from this web.cofig file from other project.
<appSettings>
<add key="Name" value="TestProject" />
</appSettings>`
I am taking value using WebConfigurationManger as follows,
WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Name"]
But it always returns null. What I am missing here ?
First of all you have to create project Dependency base on your requirement. then you can access your parent project web.config property.
System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Name"]

AppSettings in App or Web Config Using a Linked File

I'm trying to reference some common config settings between a Windows Service and an ASP.NET MVC website. I am doing this by using the file attribute on appSettings in either the App.config or Web.config (respectively). The file (named common.config) that is being referenced is a linked file in a separate project in the same solution. That common.config is set to Content with Copy Always in both projects.
This stack answer to a similiar question seems to suggest at least for configSource this solution would work. I don't want configSource though as I only want a handful of the properties to be common amongst the two projects. Update: I just tried this, and the configSource also doesn't work. It can't find the config file. This leads me to believe the common.config is not treated as content with copy always.
Example App.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<appSettings file="common.config">
<add key="NotCommonKey" value="1"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Example Web.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings file="common.config">
<add key="NotCommonKey2" value="2" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Example common.config (Content -> Copy Always)
<appSettings>
<add key="CommonKey" value="1" />
</appSettings>
I am using ConfigurationManager / WebConfigurationManager reading from the AppSettings property.
Any ideas why when the common.config is a linked file, it's AppSettings values are not used and when it is not linked it works as normal?
Thanks!
In the Web.Config you must add "bin/" (se example below).
By default the web.config is NOT copied into the bin folder but the file common.config is, therefore you must add the path from web.config. In a non-web project the default behavior is that the App.config is copied to the bin folder with name MyProgram.exe.config and is in the same directory as common.config.
<appSettings file="bin/common.config">
The idea of using "bin/..." is good but leads to an error saying that "/" is an invalid character in the resulting virtual path.
The proper solution is tu use "bin...".
Cheers
I use this to access another .exe's config file, not sure whether it will work with a MVC project, but this might get you closer:
string proj2Exe = #"C:\projects\proj2\bin\Debug\proj2.exe";
Configuration proj2Config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(proj2Exe);
string mysetting = proj2Config .AppSettings.Settings["ThatSetting"].Value;

Can I store settings in a settings.config file in ASP.NET MVC?

I'm using .NET MVC
I have about 10 properties I want to store in a configuration file (.config etc.), related to environment/deployment stuff, + other things for quick changes without doing dLL deploys.
I'm using Team foundation service for CI builds etc, and my web.config is obviously under version-contrl.
What I'd like to do is have a settings.config (that's not in version control) file to store these, am I able to do this?
Or does it need to be in web.config?
To answer the title question, yes you can store settings in a separate config file, to do so you need to define the configSource property of appSettings element
E.g.
<appSettings configSource="settings.config" />
and in the settings.config file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<appSettings>
<add key="settingKey" value="environmentValue" />
</appSettings>
However, for the sake of environment specific settings, you may want to look at config transforms. Setting up a transform config for each environment then deploying to that environment with the specified build configuration.
E.g. Web.Dev.config (provided you have setup a 'Dev' build configuration)
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
<appSettings>
<add key="settingKey"
value="devEnvironmentValue"
xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(key)"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
More details of build configuration and config transforms here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd465318(v=vs.100).aspx
Or you could take advantage of TFS features and parameterize the environment variables, I don't have a lot of experience with this, but the following should help: http://ig.obsglobal.com/2013/02/tfs-and-continuous-deployment-part-4-parameterized-deployments/

Hiding private details from open source projects

I have a .net github project that is basically a wrapper around a web API. In the test project, I am calling to the API using an API key. I need to keep this key private, how do I accomplish this in a visual studio project?
In some other projects, like python, I can have git ignore the file (config.py) and use something like config.example.py. But in visual studio's case, the project will not compile because of the missing file Config.cs. What is the proper way to solve this? I'm thinking of using this same method of ignoring the file and have them execute a build script that should rename Config.example.cs to Config.cs?
This is the perfect for .config files. Depending on whether its a web or console application, you will have a web.config or app.config file in your project.
You can use the appSettings section to store your API key.
To make things even easier, you can actually have this section read from another file, ie: specialappsettings.config and then just ignore that single file from your repository.
Modify your web.config (or app.config):
<configuration>
<appSettings file="specialappsettings.config">
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<!-- standard web settings go here -->
</system.web>
</configuration>
Create a new specialappsettings.config file:
<appSettings>
<add key="APIKey" value="YourApiKeyValue" />
<add key="AnotherKey" value="AnotherValue" />
</appSettings>
This can be accessed in your code via:
var apiKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["APIKey"];
Notes:
You can keep your settings within the original web.config file as
well but this lets you ignore just the specific settings file from
your git repository without affecting the rest of the project's
necessary configuration details.
The same "key" can be saved in
either file however the external file will override the original
web.config file value.
You are probably looking for the App.config file for a project. It will be copied to <application>.exe.config when you compile it. Users can edit that config file as needed.
In that config file, you can add your API keys:
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="APIKey" value="12345"/>
</appSettings>
</configuration>
Then you can access it from your code using ConfigurationManager.AppSettings:
string apiKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["APIKey"];
One option is to use .config files instead of having secret keys hardcoded in sources.
More info Using Settings in C# and step-by-step guide
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="SecretKey" value="0" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
var secretKey = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("SecretKey");
Perhaps you can store the key outside of the Config.cs file and load it at run time.
Bonus, other people using your code won't have to recompile the project to change to their API key.

Categories