Most ASP.NET applications include a number of configuration settings, such as connection strings, mail server settings,
system-wide default settings, and so forth. While these settings could be hard-coded in the source code, it's usually a wiser
idea to place them in a configuration file, such as Web.config. The reasoning being that if these values
need to be modified, editing a configuration file is a lot easier than updating the code, rebuilding, and re-deploying.
We can define custom configuration sections in Web.config that conforms to a pre-determined XML
schema. For example, our web application might have a couple of scalar configuration settings (quoteOfTheDay and
yourAge) as well as a collection of settings (favoriteStates) where each setting in the collection
can have its own scalar values (name and abbreviation, let's say). This configuration information
could be expressed in Web.config using the following XML markup:
<ScottsSettings
quoteOfTheDay="Hello, World!"
yourAge="28">
<favoriteStates>
<add name="California" abbreviation="CA" />
<add name="Missouri" abbreviation="MO" />
<add name="Illinois" />
</favoriteStates>
</ScottsSettings>
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In Creating Custom Configuration Sections in
Web.config we examined a technique for parsing the XML in custom configuration section that works in
both ASP.NET 1.x and 2.0 applications. This required writing a bit of code. ASP.NET 2.0 applications, however, can utilize
.NET 2.0's new configuration API, which makes creating custom configuration sections much easier. Read on to learn more!
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