CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netconfigurationapp-config
lhoworko
lhoworko

Reputation: 1191

Extend an element in App.config

We have an app.config we are using with Carbonator:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="carbonator" type="Crypton.Carbonator.Config.CarbonatorSection, Crypton.Carbonator"/>
  </configSections>

  <carbonator defaultCulture="en-US" logLevel="1" collectionInterval="1000" reportingInterval="1000" >
    <statsd server="127.0.0.1" port="8125" />
    <counters>
      <add path="processor_information.pct_processor_time.total" category="Processor" counter="% Processor Time" instance="_Total" />
      <add path="memory.available_MBytes" category="Memory" counter="Available MBytes" instance="" />
      <add path="memory.pct_commited_bytes_in_use" category="Memory" counter="% Committed Bytes In Use" instance="" />
    </counters>
  </carbonator>
</configuration>

We want to allow users to configure their own custom counters in an external config file that we reference from the <counters> element. For example, we would like to allow the user config file to look like:

<add path="logical_disk.pct_free_space.C" category="LogicalDisk" counter="% Free Space" instance="C:" />
<add path="logical_disk.disk_read_bytes_per_sec.C" category="LogicalDisk" counter="Disk Read Bytes/sec" instance="C:" />
<add path="logical_disk.disk_write_bytes_per_sec.C" category="LogicalDisk" counter="Disk Write Bytes/sec" instance="C:" />

I don't even know if this is possible outside of an appConfig element, but any help is appreciated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 925

Answers (1)

David Ferenczy Rogožan
David Ferenczy Rogožan

Reputation: 25381

According to this answer it should be possible. Same way is also described in this article.

But I don't think it's a good idea for one reason - if a user makes a mistake in his configuration extension, it will prevent the application from executing since the application configuration became invalid.

I would rather use the configuration in the app.config file to provide default values and implement some user configuration myself. Is such case, you can use whatever configuration format you like, for example JSON, which would be also better (easier to create and edit) for users. In your application, you simply merge both configurations (app.config values are default values which will be overwritten by the user's configuration).

Upvotes: 3

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