Configuration In ASP.NET Core

Introduction

 

ASP.NET Core supports many methods of configuration. In ASP.NET Core application, the configuration is stored in name-value pairs and it can be read at runtime from various parts of the application. The name-value pairs may be grouped into multi-level hierarchy. The application configuration data may come from

• File, such as JSON, XML, INI
• Environment variables
• Command Line arguments
• An in-memory collection
• Custom providers

Configuration System in ASP.NET Core is restructured from the older version of ASP.NET. The older version uses "System.Configuration" namespace and is able to read XML configuration file such as web.config. The new configuration model can be accessed to the key/value based settings and it can retrieve various sources, such as JSON, XML and INI.

Example of reading configuration using JSON provider

Generally, configuration remains in simple key/value structure or might in hierarchical structure when using external files. Consider the following appsetting.json file for this example.

 

appSetting.json

{
    "status" : "This Status read from appSettings.json file",
    "ConnectionStrings": {
        "DefaultConnection": "Server=.\\sqlexpress;Database=Test;Trusted_Connection=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=true"
    }
}

To read the JSON configuration file, we need to add "Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration" and "Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration.Json" libraries as a dependency. Following two lines need to be added in package.json file in dependency section. 

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

The "AddJsonFile" method of "JsonConfigurationExtensions" class is used to JSON file to builder. We can get simple configuration value by using key name. If configuration value is in hierarchical structure, it can be retrieved using a ":" seperated key, starting from root of the hierarchy. In this example, if we want to get value for "DefaultConnection", then the key becomes "ConnectionStrings:DefaultConnection".

 

Starpup.cs

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

namespace WebApplication
{
    public class Startup {
        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; set; }
        public Startup() {
         var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
            .AddJsonFile("appSettings.json");
         Configuration = builder.Build();
      }
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.AddMvc();
        }
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app){
            app.UseMvc();
            app.Run(context => {
                var status = Configuration["status"];
                var connectionString = Configuration["ConnectionStrings:DefaultConnection"];
                context.Response.WriteAsync("Default Connection: " + connectionString);
                context.Response.WriteAsync("<br/>");
                return context.Response.WriteAsync("Status: "+status);
            });
        }
    }
}

Output

 

 

Retrieve Configuration Data at controller

In the above mentioned example, I am retrieving the configuration value in startup class itself. The new version of ASP.NET has built-in support for dependency injection. Using DI, we can inject the value of configuration to the Controller.

Using AddSingleton method of ServiceCollectionServiceExtensions class, we can add a singleton service of the specified type with an instance of service.

 

Startup.cs

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
            services.AddMvc();
            services.AddSingleton<IConfiguration>(Configuration);
}

HomeController.cs

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    IConfiguration _configuration;
    public HomeController(IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        _configuration = configuration;
    }
    [Route("home/index")]
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        ViewBag.connectionstring = _configuration["ConnectionStrings:DefaultConnection"];
        return View();
    }
}

Output

  

 

Get Configuration object using options pattern

 

The Options pattern enables us to use custom option classes to represent a group of related settings. The Option class must have public read-write property that is defined for each setting and the class must not take any parameters.

The “Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions” dependency contains the extension method for IServiceCollection.Configure. We need to add this dependency in project.json file. 

"Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions": "1.0.0"

Here, I have defined my model and I am using same appSetting.json that was used in previous example. In this example, I have bound the connection string setting of appSetting.json with my model class. 

public class ConnectionString
{
    public ConnectionString()
    {
    }
    public string DefaultConnection { get; set; }
    public string MainDBConnectionString { get; set; }
}

In the following code, IConfigureOptions<TOptions> service is added to the Service Container. It binds ConnectionStrings class to the section "ConnectionStrings" of the appsettings.json file.

 

Startup.cs

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{

    services.AddOptions();

    //Configure Option using Extensions method
    services.Configure<ConnectionString>(Configuration.GetSection("ConnectionStrings"));

    services.AddSingleton<IConfiguration>(Configuration);
    services.AddMvc();
}

Using IOptions<TOptions> accessor service, we can inject Options into our application. To setup the IOptions<TOptions> service, we need to call "AddOptions" extension method during startup in our ConfigureServices method of Startup class.

 

HomeController.cs

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Options;

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    ConnectionString _connectionstring;
    public HomeController(IOptions<ConnectionString> connectionstringAccessor)
    {
        _connectionstring = connectionstringAccessor.Value;
    }
    [Route("home/index")]
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        ViewBag.connectionstring = _connectionstring.DefaultConnection;
        return View();
    }
}

Output

 

 

Working with In-memory provider

 

The new configuration framework of ASP.NET Core does also support in-memory configuration. In this type of configuration, the values are directly stored into the code and the later part of application uses this configuration. Following is a sample that shows how to use the in-memory provider and bind to a class.

public Startup()
{
        var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder();

        var dic = new Dictionary<string, string>
        {
            {"Profile:FirstName", "Jignesh"},
            {"Profile:LastName", "Trivedi"},
            {"Profile:Designation", "PL"}
        };
        builder.AddInMemoryCollection(dic);
        Configuration = builder.Build();
}

Using Configuration["Profile:FirstName"], we can get the value of firstname of profile configuration. We can also bind this value with custom model. Her,e I have created the following “Profile” class to bind this profile value.

public class Profile
{
    public string FirstName { get; set;}
    public string LastName { get; set;}
    public string Designation { get; set;}
}

The following sample shows how to bind to a profile and use the options pattern with ASP.NET Core MVC application.

 

Startup.cs 

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddOptions();
    services.Configure<Profile>(Configuration.GetSection("Profile"));
    services.AddMvc();
}

HomeController.cs

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Options;

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    Profile _profile;
    public HomeController(IOptions<Profile> Profile)
    {
        _profile = Profile.Value;
    }
    [Route("home/index")]
    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        ViewBag.FirstName = _profile.FirstName;
        return View();
    }
}

Summary

 

ASP.NET Core provides a flexible configuration model which supports number of different ways to work with configuration, like file-based, in-memory, and environment variables. This also supports the options model so that we can strongly inject settings to our application.