How to read system.web section from web.config

Paul Hiles picture Paul Hiles · Jun 11, 2010 · Viewed 17.7k times · Source

Should be simple, but whatever I try returns null:

const string key = "system.web";

var sectionTry1 = WebConfigurationManager.GetSection(key);

var sectionTry2 = ConfigurationManager.GetSection(key);

I'm sure I have done this before.

I am using MVC if this makes a difference.

Answer

Paul Hiles picture Paul Hiles · Jun 11, 2010

Was being an idiot - system.web is not a config section but a config group. If I change the key to an actual section, then both methods work fine. Here's the one using ConfigurationManager:

const string outputCacheSettingsKey = "system.web/caching/outputCacheSettings";           

var outputCacheSettingsSection = ConfigurationManager.GetSection(outputCacheSettingsKey) as OutputCacheSettingsSection;