Configuration

Introduction#

Asp.net core provides configuration abstractions. They allow you to load configuration settings from various sources and build a final configuration model which can then be consumed by your application.

Syntax#

• IConfiguration
• string this[string key] { get; set; }
• IEnumerable<IConfigurationSection> GetChildren();
• IConfigurationSection GetSection(string key);

Accessing Configuration using Dependency Injection

The recommended approach would be to avoid doing so and rather use IOptions<TOptions> and IServiceCollection.Configure<TOptions>.

That said, this is still pretty straightforward to make IConfigurationRootavailable application wide.

In the Startup.cs constructor you should have the following code to build the configuration,

 Configuration = builder.Build();

Here Configuration is an instance of IConfigurationRoot, And add this instance as a Singleton to the service collection in ConfigureServices method , Startup.cs ,

 public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
 {
    services.AddSingleton<IConfigurationRoot>(provider => Configuration);

For example, you can now access the configuration in a Controller/Service

  public MyController(IConfigurationRoot config){
      var setting1= config.GetValue<string>("Setting1")
  }

Getting Started

In this example we will describe what happens when you scaffold a new project.

First thing, the following dependencies will be added to you project (currently project.json file) :

"Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.EnvironmentVariables": "1.0.0",
"Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json": "1.0.0",

It will also create a constructor in your Startup.cs file which will be in charge of building the configuration using ConfigurationBuilder fluent api:

1. It first creates a new ConfigurationBuilder.
2. It then sets a base path which will be used to compute absolute path of further files
3. It adds an optional appsettings.json to the configuration builder and monitor it’s changes
4. It adds an optional environment related appsettings.environementName.json configuration file
5. It then adds environement variables.

public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
{
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
        .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true)
        .AddEnvironmentVariables();

    Configuration = builder.Build();
}

If a same setting is set in several sources, the latest source added will win and its value will be selected.

Configuration can then be consumed using the indexer property. The colon : character serve a path delimiter.

Configuration["AzureLogger:ConnectionString"]

This will look for a configuration value ConnectionString in an AzureLogger section.

Work with Environment Variables

You can source configuration from environment variables by calling .AddEnvironmentVariables() on you ConfigurationBuilder.

It will load environment variables prefixed with APPSETTING_ It will then use colon : as the key path separator.

This means that : following environement settings :

APPSETTING_Security:Authentication:UserName = a_user_name
APPSETTING_Security:Authentication:Password = a_user_password

Will be the equivalent this json :

{
    "Security" : {
       "Authentication" : {
           "UserName" : "a_user_name",
           "Password" : "a_user_password" 
        } 
    }
}

** Note that Azure Service will transmit settings as environment variables. Prefix will be set for you transparently. So to do the same in Azure just set two Application Settings in AppSettings blade :

Security:Authentication:UserName         a_user_name
Security:Authentication:Password         a_user_password

Option model and configuration

When dealing with large configuration sets of value, it might become quite unhandy to load them one buy one.

Option model which comes with asp.net offers a convenient way to map a section to a dotnet poco: For instance, one might hydrate StorageOptions directly from a configuration section b adding Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions package and calling the Configure<TOptions>(IConfiguration config) extension method.

services.Configure<StorageOptions>(Configuration.GetSection("Storage"));

In Memory configuration source

You can also source configuration from an in memory object such as a Dictionary<string,string>

.AddInMemoryCollection(new Dictionary<string, string>
{
    ["akey"] = "a value"
})

This can reveal helpful in integration/unit testing scenarios.