Pull connection string from appsettings C#

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Hi -

What I am trying is to access my connection string(s) from the appsettings.json file. But string is always null. Any help is greatly appericated. Thank you in advance.

Appsettings

"customers":[
    {
      "name": "Customer One",
      "connectionStrings": [
        { "CustomerOneConnection": "" },
        { "CustomerTwoConnection": "" }
      ],
    }
]

Program.cs
inside the configure services accessing the app settings:

services.Configure<List<CustomerDetails>>(context.Configuration.GetSection("customers"));

Small class to set the details for the customer

    public class CustomerDetails
{
    public string name { get; set; }
    public List<Tuple<string, string>> connectionStrings { get; set; }

}

What I have tried:

_connectionString = customerDetails.connectionStrings.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Item1 == "CustomerOneConnection").Item1;

_connectionString = customerDetails.connectionStrings.Where(x => x.Item1 == "CustomerOneConnection").Item1;

_connectionString = customerDetails.connectionStrings[0].Item1;

Posted 22-May-23 9:38am

Troy Bryant

Updated 22-May-23 22:56pm

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Richard Deeming 23-May-23 3:40am

Rather than List<Tuple<string, string>>, why not use Dictionary<string, string>? That will make it easier to retrieve the values, and you'll be less likely to look at Item1 when you mean Item2. :)

2 solutions

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George Swan · Answer 1 · 2023-05-22T22:56:00

My suggestion would be to add the appropriate connection strings to appsettings.json so that the last lines read something like this

C#

"AllowedHosts": "*",
 "ConnectionStrings": {
   "CustomerOneConnection": "Data Source=(localdb)\\ProjectModels;Initial Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=True",
   "CustomerTwoConnection": "Data Source=(localdb)\\ProjectModels;Initial Catalog=Southwind;Integrated Security=True"
   }

Use a class to bind the connections to the public properties of the class. The names must exactly match the connection string names.

C#

public class ServerOptions
{
    //The field ConnectionStrings is not mapped,
    // Only the public properties are mapped to the connection strings
    // in appsettings.json
    public const string ConnectionStrings = "ConnectionStrings";

    public string CustomerOneConnection { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    public string CustomerTwoConnection { get; set; } = string.Empty;
}

Now you can bind the connection strings to the 2 public properties like this

C#

var serverOptions = new ServerOptions();
Configuration.GetSection(ServerOptions.ConnectionStrings).Bind(serverOptions);

Graeme_Grant · Answer 2 · 2023-05-22T12:55:00

Solution 1

THis should answer your question: .NET App Settings Demystified (C# & VB)[^]

Posted 22-May-23 12:55pm

Graeme_Grant