How do I read a custom section in app.config from codebehind? - wpf

Question

I have an app.config file that stores values in a few different sections. I have these snippets:
<configuration>
<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="someDataAccessLayer">
<section name="databaseConnectionStrings" type="sometype" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<someDataAccessLayer>
<databaseConnectionStrings>
<databaseConnectionString name="someSQL"
value="database=somedatabase;Integrated Security=False;User Id=sa;server=someserver;Password=somepassword/>
</databaseConnectionStrings>
</someDataAccessLayer>
How do I read the connection string in the codebehind? Specifically the value which is
database=somedatabase;Integrated Security=False;User Id=sa;server=someserver;Password=somepassword
Thanks for your help! Please let me know if the question is still unclear.

Answer 1

Your configuration section will be associated with some .NET class to handle it:
<configSections>
<sectionGroup name="someDataAccessLayer">
<section name="databaseConnectionStrings" type="sometype" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
So to read the settings from the <localeSettings> section, you need to use the ConfigurationManager (add a reference to System.Configuration to your project) to get those settings into an instance of that class:
sometype cs = ConfigurationManager.GetSection("someDataAccessLayer/databaseConnectionStrings") as sometype;
Now you have an object of type sometype that contains all the settings in that config section. One of those properties will be a list of database connection strings, which you can now enumerate and find the appropriate one and read it's .Value property.

Answer 2

App.Config Settings:
<configuration>
<configSections>
</configSections>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="MyApp.LocalConnectionString"
connectionString="Data Source= .\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DBName;Integrated Security = true"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
Access at DataLayer using the ConfigurationManager as:
// add reference
using System.Configuration;
// then access connection string in your class
private static string strConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyApp.LocalConnectionString"].ConnectionString;