Recursive customization in C #

Question

I am trying to create a custom configuration section following a recursive structure:

<monitorSettings> <monitor description="description1" /> <monitor description="description2" /> <monitor description="description3"> <monitor description="description3.1" /> <monitor description="description3.2" /> </monitor> </monitorSettings> 

Is it possible? I am not sure how I will lay out the configuration classes.

I have the following for the monitor:

 public class Monitor : ConfigurationElement { [ConfigurationProperty("description", IsRequired = true)] public String Description { get { return (String)this["description"]; } set { this["description"] = value; } } } 

What do I need to add to make it recursive?

Answer 1

You can do this with a configuration file similar to the following (small change in the above):

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="monitorSettings" type="RecursiveCustomConfiguration.MonitorConfig, RecursiveCustomConfiguration"/> </configSections> <monitorSettings> <monitors> <monitor description="description1" /> <monitor description="description2" /> <monitor description="description3"> <monitors> <monitor description="description3.1" /> <monitor description="description3.2" /> </monitors> </monitor> </monitors> </monitorSettings> </configuration> 

and configuration classes such as:

 using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Configuration; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace RecursiveCustomConfiguration { public class MonitorConfig : ConfigurationSection { public static MonitorConfig GetConfig() { return ConfigurationManager.GetSection("monitorSettings") as MonitorConfig; } [ConfigurationProperty("monitors", IsDefaultCollection = true, IsRequired = true)] [ConfigurationCollection(typeof(MonitorCollection), AddItemName = "monitor")] public MonitorCollection Monitors { get { return this["monitors"] as MonitorCollection; } } } public class MonitorCollection : ConfigurationElementCollection { public Monitor this[int index] { get { return base.BaseGet(index) as Monitor; } set { if (base.BaseGet(index) != null) { base.BaseRemoveAt(index); } this.BaseAdd(index, value); } } public Monitor this[object description] { get { return base.BaseGet(description) as Monitor; } } protected override ConfigurationElement CreateNewElement() { return new Monitor(); } protected override object GetElementKey(ConfigurationElement element) { return ((Monitor)element).Description; } public override ConfigurationElementCollectionType CollectionType { get { return ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap; } } protected override string ElementName { get { return "monitor"; } } } public class Monitor : ConfigurationElement { [ConfigurationProperty("description", IsRequired = true)] public string Description { get { return this["description"] as string; } } [ConfigurationProperty("monitors", IsRequired = false)] public MonitorCollection Monitors { get { return this["monitors"] as MonitorCollection; } } } } 

Then, for example, for use in a Windows Console application:

 MonitorCollection monitors = MonitorConfig.GetConfig().Monitors; foreach (Monitor m in monitors) { Console.WriteLine(m.Description); if (m.Monitors != null && m.Monitors.Count > 0) { foreach (Monitor m1 in m.Monitors) { Console.WriteLine(m1.Description); } } } 

Answer 2

try configuration group ConfigurationSectionGroup Class