How to read AppSettings values from .json file in

Question

I have setup my AppSettings data in appsettings/Config .json like this:

{
  "AppSettings": {
        "token": "1234"
    }
}

I have searched online on how to read AppSettings values from .json file, but I could not get anything useful.

I tried:

var configuration = new Configuration();
var appSettings = configuration.Get("AppSettings"); // null
var token = configuration.Get("token"); // null

I know with ASP.NET 4.0 you can do this:

System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["token"];

But how do I do this in ASP.NET Core?

Answer 1

This has had a few twists and turns. I've modified this answer to be up to date with ASP.NET Core 2.0 (as of 26/02/2018).

This is mostly taken from the official documentation:

To work with settings in your ASP.NET application, it is recommended that you only instantiate a Configuration in your application’s Startup class. Then, use the Options pattern to access individual settings. Let's say we have an appsettings.json file that looks like this:

{
  "MyConfig": {
   "ApplicationName": "MyApp",
   "Version": "1.0.0"
   }

}

And we have a POCO object representing the configuration:

public class MyConfig
{
    public string ApplicationName { get; set; }
    public int Version { get; set; }
}

Now we build the configuration in Startup.cs:

public class Startup 
{
    public IConfigurationRoot Configuration { get; set; }

    public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
    {
        var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
            .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
            .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true);

        Configuration = builder.Build();
    }
}

Note that appsettings.json will be registered by default in .NET Core 2.0. We can also register an appsettings.{Environment}.json config file per environment if needed.

If we want to inject our configuration to our controllers, we'll need to register it with the runtime. We do so via Startup.ConfigureServices:

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddMvc();

    // Add functionality to inject IOptions<T>
    services.AddOptions();

    // Add our Config object so it can be injected
    services.Configure<MyConfig>(Configuration.GetSection("MyConfig"));
}

And we inject it like this:

public class HomeController : Controller
{
    private readonly IOptions<MyConfig> config;

    public HomeController(IOptions<MyConfig> config)
    {
        this.config = config;
    }

    // GET: /<controller>/
    public IActionResult Index() => View(config.Value);
}

The full Startup class:

public class Startup 
{
    public IConfigurationRoot Configuration { get; set; }

    public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
    {
        var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
            .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
            .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true);

        Configuration = builder.Build();
    }

    public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        services.AddMvc();

        // Add functionality to inject IOptions<T>
        services.AddOptions();

        // Add our Config object so it can be injected
        services.Configure<MyConfig>(Configuration.GetSection("MyConfig"));
    }
}

Answer 2

They just keep changing things – having just updated VS and had the whole project bomb, on the road to recovery and the new way looks like this:

public Startup(IHostingEnvironment env)
{
    var builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)
        .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{env.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true);

    if (env.IsDevelopment())
    {
        // For more details on using the user secret store see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=532709
        builder.AddUserSecrets();
    }

    builder.AddEnvironmentVariables();
    Configuration = builder.Build();
}

I kept missing this line!

.SetBasePath(env.ContentRootPath)

Answer 3

For .NET Core 2.0, things have changed a little bit. The startup constructor takes a Configuration object as a parameter, So using the ConfigurationBuilder is not required. Here is mine:

public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
    Configuration = configuration;
}

public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }

// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.Configure<StorageOptions>(Configuration.GetSection("AzureStorageConfig"));
}

My POCO is the StorageOptions object mentioned at the top:

namespace Brazzers.Models
{
    public class StorageOptions
    {
        public String StorageConnectionString { get; set; }
        public String AccountName { get; set; }
        public String AccountKey { get; set; }
        public String DefaultEndpointsProtocol { get; set; }
        public String EndpointSuffix { get; set; }

        public StorageOptions() { }
    }
}

And the configuration is actually a subsection of my appsettings.json file, named AzureStorageConfig:

{
  "ConnectionStrings": {
    "DefaultConnection": "Server=(localdb)\\mssqllocaldb;",
    "StorageConnectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=brazzerswebapp;AccountKey=Cng4Afwlk242-23=-_d2ksa69*2xM0jLUUxoAw==;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net"
  },
  "Logging": {
    "IncludeScopes": false,
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Warning"
    }
  },

  "AzureStorageConfig": {
    "AccountName": "brazzerswebapp",
    "AccountKey": "Cng4Afwlk242-23=-_d2ksa69*2xM0jLUUxoAw==",
    "DefaultEndpointsProtocol": "https",
    "EndpointSuffix": "core.windows.net",
    "StorageConnectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=brazzerswebapp;AccountKey=Cng4Afwlk242-23=-_d2ksa69*2xM0jLUUxoAw==;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net"
  }
}

The only thing I'll add is that, since the constructor has changed, I haven't tested whether something extra needs to be done for it to load appsettings.<environmentname>.json as opposed to appsettings.json.

Answer 4

For .NET Core 2.0, you can simply:

Declare your key/value pairs in appsettings.json:

{
  "MyKey": "MyValue
}

Inject the configuration service in startup.cs, and get the value using the service

using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;

public class Startup
{
    public void Configure(IConfiguration configuration,
                          ... other injected services
                          )
    {
        app.Run(async (context) =>
        {
            string myValue = configuration["MyKey"];
            await context.Response.WriteAsync(myValue);
        });

Answer 5

In addition to existing answers I'd like to mention that sometimes it might be useful to have extension methods for IConfiguration for simplicity's sake.

I keep JWT config in appsettings.json so my extension methods class looks as follows:

public static class ConfigurationExtensions
{
    public static string GetIssuerSigningKey(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        string result = configuration.GetValue<string>("Authentication:JwtBearer:SecurityKey");
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetValidIssuer(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        string result = configuration.GetValue<string>("Authentication:JwtBearer:Issuer");
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetValidAudience(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        string result = configuration.GetValue<string>("Authentication:JwtBearer:Audience");
        return result;
    }

    public static string GetDefaultPolicy(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        string result = configuration.GetValue<string>("Policies:Default");
        return result;
    }

    public static SymmetricSecurityKey GetSymmetricSecurityKey(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        var issuerSigningKey = configuration.GetIssuerSigningKey();
        var data = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(issuerSigningKey);
        var result = new SymmetricSecurityKey(data);
        return result;
    }

    public static string[] GetCorsOrigins(this IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        string[] result =
            configuration.GetValue<string>("App:CorsOrigins")
            .Split(",", StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
            .ToArray();

        return result;
    }
}

It saves you a lot of lines and you just write clean and minimal code:

...
x.TokenValidationParameters = new TokenValidationParameters()
{
    ValidateIssuerSigningKey = true,
    ValidateLifetime = true,
    IssuerSigningKey = _configuration.GetSymmetricSecurityKey(),
    ValidAudience = _configuration.GetValidAudience(),
    ValidIssuer = _configuration.GetValidIssuer()
};

---

It's also possible to register IConfiguration instance as singleton and inject it wherever you need - I use Autofac container here's how you do it:

var appConfiguration = AppConfigurations.Get(WebContentDirectoryFinder.CalculateContentRootFolder());
builder.Register(c => appConfiguration).As<IConfigurationRoot>().SingleInstance();

You can do the same with MS Dependency Injection:

services.AddSingleton<IConfigurationRoot>(appConfiguration);