How to get the values of a ConfigurationSection of type NameValueSectionHandler

Question

I'm working with C#, Framework 3.5 (VS 2008).

I'm using the ConfigurationManager to load a config (not the default app.config file) into a Configuration object.

Using the Configuration class, I was able to get a ConfigurationSection, but I could not find a way to get the values of that section.

In the config, the ConfigurationSection is of type System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler.

For what it worth, when I used the method GetSection of the ConfigurationManager (works only when it was on my default app.config file), I received an object type, that I could cast into collection of pairs of key-value, and I just received the value like a Dictionary. I could not do such cast when I received ConfigurationSection class from the Configuration class however.

EDIT: Example of the config file:

<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="MyParams" 
             type="System.Configuration.NameValueSectionHandler" />
  </configSections>

  <MyParams>
    <add key="FirstParam" value="One"/>
    <add key="SecondParam" value="Two"/>
  </MyParams>
</configuration>

Example of the way i was able to use it when it was on app.config (the "GetSection" method is for the default app.config only):

NameValueCollection myParamsCollection =
             (NameValueCollection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("MyParams");

Console.WriteLine(myParamsCollection["FirstParam"]);
Console.WriteLine(myParamsCollection["SecondParam"]);

Answer 1

Suffered from exact issue. Problem was because of NameValueSectionHandler in .config file. You should use AppSettingsSection instead:

<configuration>

 <configSections>
    <section  name="DEV" type="System.Configuration.AppSettingsSection" />
    <section  name="TEST" type="System.Configuration.AppSettingsSection" />
 </configSections>

 <TEST>
    <add key="key" value="value1" />
 </TEST>

 <DEV>
    <add key="key" value="value2" />
 </DEV>

</configuration>

then in C# code:

AppSettingsSection section = (AppSettingsSection)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("TEST");

btw NameValueSectionHandler is not supported any more in 2.0.