NimblePros.Configuration

NimblePros.Configuration is a .NET library that provides extension methods to enable the use of the Options configuration pattern with various .NET Inversion of Control (IoC) containers. The project is built on top of Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration but does not use Microsoft.Extensions.Options due to the reasons explained in this article. The library targets .NET Standard 2.0, making it compatible with a wide range of .NET projects.

Features

• Extension methods for easy integration with popular IoC containers
• Seamless configuration of your application settings using the Options pattern
• Avoids the issues and limitations associated with Microsoft.Extensions.Options
• Provides a bridge between System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager and Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration, making it easy to smoothly migrate from the former to the latter

Getting Started

.NET Core

To use NimblePros.Configuration and the Options pattern in a .NET Core project, follow these steps:

1. Install the NimblePros.Configuration.* NuGet package for the IoC container of your choice. For example, to use NimblePros.Configuration with Autofac, install the NimblePros.Configuration.Autofac package.

2. Define a class representing a section of your application settings, where the property names correspond to the keys in the configuration file. For example, if your configuration file contains the following section:

"mySettings": {
    "setting1": "value1",
    "setting2": "value2"
}

then you can define a class like this:

public class MySettings
{
    public string Setting1 { get; set; }
    public string Setting2 { get; set; }
}

3. Register the configuration section with the IoC container. For example, to register the MySettings section with Autofac, use the following code:

// Autofac ContainerBuilder
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();

// Part of Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration
// Depending on your project, you may not need to create and configure a new instance of ConfigurationBuilder
var configurationBuilder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
var configuration = configurationBuilder.AddJsonFile("appsettings.json").Build();

// Register the configuration section with Autofac using one of the extension methods
// provided by NimblePros.Configuration.Autofac
containerBuilder.AddSingletonConfig<MySettings>(configuration);

var container = containerBuilder.Build();

The code would be very similar for a different IOC container and the extension methods provided by NimblePros.Configuration.* all have the same name for each package:

• AddSingletonConfig - Registers the configuration section as a singleton
• AddScopedConfig - Registers the configuration section as a scoped service
• AddTransientConfig - Registers the configuration section as a transient service

4. Inject the configuration section into your application. For example, to inject the MySettings section into an ASP.NET Core controller, use the following code:

public class MyController : Controller
{
    private readonly MySettings _mySettings;

    public MyController(MySettings mySettings)
    {
        _mySettings = mySettings;
    }

    public IActionResult Index()
    {
        return View(_mySettings);
    }
}

Your IOC container will automatically resolve the MySettings instance and inject it into the controller.

.NET Framework

To use NimblePros.Configuration and the Options pattern in a .NET Framework project, you would follow the above steps with a few minor additions:

1. In addition to installing the NimblePros.Configuration.* package for the IoC container of your choice, you would also need to install the NimblePros.Configuration which provides the extension method allowing you to pass the configuration contained in your app.config/web.config file to the Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration configuration builder by wrapping System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.

2. Register the legacy configuration builder with the IoC container. For example, to register the legacy configuration builder with Autofac, use the following code:

// Autofac ContainerBuilder
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();

// Part of Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration
var configurationBuilder = new ConfigurationBuilder();
var configuration = configurationBuilder.AddLegacyConfiguration().Build();
                                                ^
                                                |
                                                +-- This is the extension method provided by NimblePros.Configuration
// Register the configuration section with Autofac using one of the extension methods
// provided by NimblePros.Configuration.Autofac
containerBuilder.AddSingletonConfig<MySettings>(configuration);

var container = containerBuilder.Build();

Supported IoC Containers

• Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection - NimblePros.Configuration.Core
• Autofac - NimblePros.Configuration.Autofac
• Castle Windsor - NimblePros.Configuration.Windsor
• Ninject - NimblePros.Configuration.Ninject
• StructureMap - NimblePros.Configuration.StructureMap
• Unity - NimblePros.Configuration.Unity

To use NimblePros.Configuration with a specific IoC container, install the corresponding NuGet package, and follow the container-specific integration steps provided in the package documentation.

Contributing

We welcome contributions to NimblePros.Configuration. If you'd like to contribute, please submit a pull request or create an issue to discuss your ideas.

License

NimblePros.Configuration is licensed under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more details.