CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netconfig
John Ryann
John Ryann

Reputation: 2393

How to stop .Net looking for .config files for my executable

I have a program called parser.exe and it uses a config file called parser.config (a txt format; I read it with streamreader). For some reasons C# complains and doesn't like this.

Unhandled Exception: System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException: Configuration system failed to initialize ---> System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrors

BUT if I created a file called parser.exe.config. with just followng content application runs fine:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
</configuration>

Why this is happening and how to suppress this problem without having parser.exe.config and changing the config name from parser.config to parser.exe.config?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1147

Answers (2)

D Stanley
D Stanley

Reputation: 152501

it uses a config file called parser.config (a txt format; I read it with streamreader)

There's no need for this. .NET already has a perfectly good framework for application configuration files. Just add an app.config file to your project and Visual Studio will automatically create a parser.exe.config file when you build.
You can then use the ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings dictionary to read individual configuration items - or use more complex structured for more complex configurations.

To use an external configuration file for a config section, just use the configSource attribute in app.config:

<configuration>
  <appSettings configSource="parser.config" />
    <startup> 
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
    </startup>
</configuration>

parser.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<appSettings>
  <add key="Test" value="This is a test"/>
</appSettings>

why this is happening?

That's the way the framework was designed - it will look for a {executable name}.config file by default - you can add external config files as explained above but there's no way that I know of to have the framework look for a different file name by default.

You could load a new file into a separate configuration object:

ExeConfigurationFileMap configMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();
configMap.ExeConfigFilename = @"parser.config";
var config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(configMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);

But then you have to use that config instance to access config settings:

Console.WriteLine(config.AppSettings.Settings["test"].Value);

instead of

Console.WriteLine(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["test"]);

But that seems like a long way to go to avoid the default config file name.

Upvotes: 3

G. Stoynev
G. Stoynev

Reputation: 7783

You can tell .NET to look for your settings in another file, like this:

<configuration>
    <appSettings file="parser.config"></appSettings> 
</configuration>

Upvotes: 1

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