Accessing the appSettings Section
The .NET Framework provides a predefined configuration section called appSettings. The following example shows the declaration of the appSettings section as it appears in the machine configuration file (Machine.config).
<configuration>
<!-- Configuration section declarations. -->
<configSections>
<!-- You do not need to declare the appSettings section. Machine.config ships with a declaration for this section. -->
<section name="appSettings"
type="System.Web.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler"/>
</configSections>
</configuration>
The following example shows how to use an application setting in a configuration file using the built-in appSettings section**.**
<configuration>
<!-- The following code uses the predefined appSettings section. -->
<appSettings>
<add key="Application Name" value="MyApplication" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings is a special property that provides a shortcut to application settings defined in the <appSettings> section of the configuration file. The following example shows how to retrieve the application name defined in the previous configuration file example.
Public Sub ReadMyAppSettings()
Dim appName As String
appName = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("Application Name")
Console.WriteLine()
Console.WriteLine("Reading AppSettings")
Console.WriteLine("Application Name: " & appName)
End Sub
[C#]
public void ReadMyAppSettings()
{
string appName = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Application Name"];
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("Reading AppSettings");
Console.WriteLine("Application Name: " + appName);
}
See Also
Configuration Section Settings | Configuration Sections Schema