How to Read a Configuration Section from XML in a Database?

Question

I have a Config class like this:

public class MyConfig : ConfigurationSection
{
        [ConfigurationProperty(\"MyProperty\", IsRequired = true)]
        public         


        

Answer 1

If you need to get any System.Configuration.ConfigurationSection stored in database, you may consider writing generic section reader like this:

    
public class ConfigurationSectionReader where T : ConfigurationSection, new()
{
    public T GetSection( string sectionXml ) 
    {
        T section = new T();
        using ( StringReader stringReader = new StringReader( sectionXml ) )
        using ( XmlReader reader = XmlReader.Create( stringReader, new XmlReaderSettings() { CloseInput = true } ) )
        {
            reader.Read();
            section.GetType().GetMethod( "DeserializeElement", BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance ).Invoke( section, new object[] { reader, true } );
        }
        return section;
    }
}
    

This will work for all classes that override DeserializeElement method. e.g.

    
protected override void DeserializeElement( XmlReader reader, bool serializeCollectionKey )
{
    XmlDocument document = new XmlDocument();
    document.LoadXml( reader.ReadOuterXml() );
    MyProperty = document.DocumentElement.HasAttribute( "MyProperty" )
        ? document.DocumentElement.Attributes[ "MyProperty" ].Value
        : string.Empty;
}
    

Than you could get a section like this:

    
var reader = new ConfigurationSectionReader();
var section = reader.GetSection( sectionXml ); // where sectionXml is the XML string retrieved from the DB