Maintaining App Config For Dev, QA And Prod Regions

Recently, I was working with a client who has just started with the adoption of cloud technologies and they have a long roadmap before they reach Kubernetes or a container-based development approach.

There were a few batch jobs that I was supposed to write, that would perform some push/pull from the existing LOBs to Azure. This was to minimize my efforts so that I don't have to maintain different configs for each region like DEV, QA, and PROD. I wrote a custom config section to be able to slice the different app settings based on the region. Here are some details and codes.

Custom Config Section Entry in the App.Config

<configSections>
<section name ="serverConfiguration" type ="ServerConfiguration.ServerSettingHandler, ServerConfiguration"/>
</configSections>
<serverConfiguration>
<server name ="Dev">
<settings>
<add key ="ck" value ="ckDEV" />
<add key ="abc" value ="mlDEV" />
<add key ="cde" value ="p3DEV" />
<add key ="efg" value ="oppDEV" />
</settings>
</server>
<server name ="QA">
<settings>
<add key ="ck" value ="ckQA" />
<add key ="abc" value ="mlQA" />
<add key ="cde" value ="p3QA" />
<add key ="efg" value ="oppQA" />
</settings>
</server>
<server name ="PRD">
<settings>
<add key ="ck" value ="ckPRD" />
<add key ="abc" value ="mlPRD" />
<add key ="cde" value ="p3PRD" />
<add key ="efg" value ="oppPRD" />
</settings>
</server>
</serverConfiguration>

Fetch the Specific Setting Value

var server = ServerConfigManager.GetServerSetting("dev","ck");
Console.WriteLine(server);
// Prints
// ckDEV

Fetch the All Setting Value

var server = ServerConfigManager.GetServer("Dev");

foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> setting in server?.Settings)
{
Console.WriteLine($"Key : {setting.Key} Value : {setting.Value}");
}
// Prints
/*
Key : ck Value : ckDEV
Key : abc Value : mlDEV
Key : cde Value : p3DEV
Key : efg Value : oppDEV
*/

Other Wrappers

If you decide to name the server with the Machine name, then you can also make use of the below method for fetching the details.

// The GetCurrentServer uses the Environment.MachineName to look in the Config sections and Fetches the value.
var server = ServerConfigManager.GetCurrentServer()

Attached code has all the source files.

I know this has been available in C# for almost a decade or so, but this blog may be a good read to refresh your knowledge on this old technique.

4 Comments

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Gajendra Jangid8y ago
Nice blog..................
Sameer Shaik8y ago
You selected a good topic, i think u can write a better explanation for this.
Sandy8y ago
What is the role of config.debug and config.release and also if we have some keys in application settings then how can I maintain configuration?
- Chirag Khabaria8y ago
  Config.debug and config release are the transformation files if you want to have separate setting for debug mode vs release mode. For instance while running in the debug mode you may want to connect to the specific test database then in release mode. so you can accordingly specify the connection string and I believe currently config transformation is only available in the web application and not in the console application. The article is more about having different configuration settings for different environment like DEV, QA or PROD.