Accessing another projects app.config properties?

Question

I have two projects within my solution, for this example I will call them project A and B.

Project B references A. Can Project B access the app.config properties of project A?

I wish to access an app key string within the app.config of A.

string tfsUri = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["TfsUri"];

Answer 1

That's generally not a good idea, as you introduce hard dependencies between the projects. So if you can copy-paste config value, that will make your projects self-contained (however, this introduces duplication of config value).

You can also automate this, so that when you build a project the configuration dependency is automatically resolved.

Having-said this, there are other options, and in each case you may prefer to use something else. Your other options are:

• Use configuration transformation, like SlowCheetah
• Add whole config file from one project to another "as a link"
• Inject configuration value to your class (instead of reading it from config)
• Read other project's config file in runtime, by using things like ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration
• Also check out How to select different app.config for several build configurations