Read ConnectionString from Application Settings in Web.config

Question

I'm working on a .NET Framework 4.5.2 legacy application.

I need the plain ConnectionString of my application, but I don't know how to read it.

Unfortunately the Web.config file of the app, does not have a section "connectionStrings".

Instead, in the Web.config file, there is a section "applicationSettings" which contains the necessary parameters:

<applicationSettings>
  <MyApp.Properties.Settings xdt:Transform="Replace">
    <setting name="Url" serializeAs="String">
      <value>myapp.com</value>
    </setting>
    <setting name="User" serializeAs="String">
      <value>admin</value>
    </setting>
    <setting name="PW" serializeAs="String">
      <value>Password1</value>
    </setting>
    <setting name="Domain" serializeAs="String">
      <value>Fruits</value>
    </setting>
    <setting name="Port" serializeAs="String">
      <value>123</value>
    </setting>
    <setting name="UseSSL" serializeAs="String">
      <value>True</value>
    </setting>
  </MyApp.Properties.Settings>
</applicationSettings>

I need the plain connection string as a text in notepad - because I need to store the connectionstring in my Azure DevOps environment.

Do you know how to retrieve the connectionString?

By any chance, do you know how to solve this issue?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if I understood correctly your problem, but I think you should be able to use the ConfigurationManager.AppSettings property to read the values from the Web.config file.

But instead I would add the connection string inside the Configuration section (in the Web.config), like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
<configuration> 
..
<connectionStrings>  
      <add name="MyConnection" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=MyDatabase;Integrated Security=True;Pooling=False" />
</connectionStrings>    
<appSettings>
 ..
</appSettings>

Then is just a matter to get the connection from the ConnectionStrings property: ConfigurationManager.ConnectionString["MyConnection"], and that's it.

If you need further information can see the following links:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.configuration.configurationmanager.connectionstrings?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.configuration.configurationmanager.appsettings?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0

Answer 2

To retrieve the connectionString you can use the following code

string cn=ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[yourConnectionStringName].ConnectionString;