Custom Configuration Section in Tridion.ContentManager.Config

Question

*Version: Tridion 2009 *
I have added a Custom Configuration section in Tridion.ContentManager.Config for storing some values to be used by the Custom Resolver that I'm writing.

I will use this value to detect whether the current publish transaction is executing against the live publication target or not.

However, when I attempt to retrieve the values from the config file, I get "Object reference not set to an instance of an object." error.

This is how the configuration looks like:

    <configuration>
        <configSections>
            <!-- Other Config Section Declarations -->     
            <section name="My.ConfigSection" 
                     type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
        </configSections>
        <My.ConfigSection>
                <add key="LivePublicationTargetId" 
                     value="tcm:0-10-65537" />
        </My.ConfigSection>
        <!-- Other Config Sections-->
    </configuration>

This is how I try to retrieve it from the IResolver class: (Please note that this is working for regular ASP.net websites.)

string LivePubTargetID = ((NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.
       GetSection("My.ConfigSection")).Get("LivePublicationTargetId");

This is the piece that returns null and causes the error: ConfigurationManager.GetSection("My.ConfigSection").

Any ideas about how to overcome this issue?

Answer 1

Could you please break your code down by this way -

NameValueCollection section = (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("My.ConfigSection");

string liveTargetId= section["LivePublicationTargetId"];

By this way you can easily find out where exactly NULL exists, in “section” or “LivePublicationTargetId”.

Please update me about this. I will take next step on this behalf and update the answer here.

Answer 2

As far as I know, Tridion.ContentManager.config isn't loaded by the ConfigurationManager class. Even if it was, I would not recommend putting your own stuff into it as it will likely get overwritten the next time you upgrade.

Put it in your own App.config file instead; that should work with the code you have.

Answer 3

I ended up using my own configuration file for this. I would like to share with you.

        string livePublicationTargetId = "";
        private string LivePublicationTargetId
        {
            get
            {
                if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(livePublicationTargetId))
                {

                    //get the dll path: first parse it as URI to get rid off ///file: prefix and then HTTP decode
                    string assemblyFile = System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlDecode((new System.Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase)).AbsolutePath);


                    ExeConfigurationFileMap configMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap();

                    //set ExeConfigFile name : use the assemblyname but replace '.dll' with '.config'
                    configMap.ExeConfigFilename = assemblyFile.Substring(0, assemblyFile.LastIndexOf('.')) + ".config";

                    //init config object
                    Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(configMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
                    if (!config.HasFile) throw new System.IO.FileNotFoundException(String.Format("Config file '{0}' doesn't exist", configMap.ExeConfigFilename));

                    //try reading the config value. It will throw error if it can't be found/read.             
                    livePublicationTargetId = ((ClientSettingsSection)config.GetSection("applicationSettings/MyClient.Tridion.CustomResolving.Properties.Settings"))
                    .Settings.Get("LivePublicationTargetId").Value.ValueXml.InnerText;
                }

                return livePublicationTargetId;
            }

        }

Answer 4

Try this way:

private void ReadSettings() {
    NameValueCollection myConfigSection = (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig("My.ConfigSection");
    LivePubTargetID = myConfigSection["LivePublicationTargetId"].toString(); 
}

One more information, If you want to read the values from a file other than the app.config, you need to load it into the ConfigurationManager.

Try using this method: ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration()