You can organize similar sections into groups by using the <sectionGroup> element. Declaring a section group creates a containing element for configuration sections and ensures that there are no naming conflicts with configuration sections that are defined by someone else. Declare the section group in the <configSections> element and put sections that belong to that group in the <sectionGroup> element.

The following example shows how to declare a section group in a configuration file.

<configuration>
    <configSections>
        <section name="sampleSection"
                 type="System.Configuration.SingleTagSectionHandler" />
        <!--The following code declares a section group called mySectionGroup. -->
        <sectionGroup name="mySectionGroup">
            <section name="mySection"
             type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler,System" />
        </sectionGroup>
    </configSections>

   <mySectionGroup>
        <mySection>
            <add key="key1" value="value1" />
        </mySection>
    </mySectionGroup>

</configuration>

To access sections that are within a section group, use the ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig method to specify both the section group name and the section name, as shown in the following example.

Dim nvc As NameValueCollection

' Notice the path-like syntax.
nvc = CType(ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig("mySectionGroup/mySection"),
      NameValueCollection)
[C#]
// Notice the path-like syntax.
NameValueCollection nvc = (NameValueCollection)
   ConfigurationSettings.GetConfig("mySectionGroup/mySection");

See Also

Configuration Section Settings | Declaring and Accessing Custom Configuration Sections | Configuration Sections Schema