ASP.NET 5 - Using a Configuration Setting

Clearly you want to access Configuration property in your Startup class. And the error method says it doesn't know what Configuration is. So you need a using statement or a fully qualified name. Also, you should avoid naming things the same thing as stuff found in the framework. Your Startup class has a Configuration property, but it also tries to use the Configuration class from Microsoft.Framework.ConfigurationModel. How confusing is that?

Your Configure() method in Startup needs a using statement or fully qualified name so it knows what the Configuration class is.

using Microsoft.Framework.ConfigurationModel; //at the top of your class
Configuration = new Configuration(); //later in the code, we can access without fully qualifying name

or

Configuration = new Microsoft.Framework.ConfigurationModel.Configuration();

In your controller, you may have a similar issue. Replace MyOrg.MyApp.Startup in the example below with whatever the namespace is for your Startup class.

using MyOrg.MyApp.Startup //at the top of your class
Startup.Configuration.Get("App:Info:Version"); //later in the code, we can access without fully qualifying name

or

 MyOrg.MyApp.Startup.Startup.Configuration.Get("App:Info:Version");

Better way of doing things

That should be enough to get you started. However, accessing the Startup class to retrieve your configuration isn't ideal, because now your controller's action methods depend on having the Startup class there. That's not very unit testable. Ideally your controllers should be isolated from each other. You should define some sort of interface to hold the configuration info you want, then have the controller depend on that interface. When you're in your site, you'll respond with a class specific to the site's configuration. When unit testing, you can have tight control over the test values by using a different class.

interface ISiteConfig
{
    string Version {get; set;}
    DateTime ReleaseDate {get; set;}
}

public class SiteConfig : ISiteConfig
{
    public string Version {get; set;}
    public DateTime ReleaseDate {get; set;}

    public SiteConfig()
    {
        var c = new Configuration()
        .AddJsonFile("config.json");
        Version = c.Get("App:Info:Version");
        ReleaseDate = c.Get("App:Info:ReleaseDate"); //may need to parse here
    }
}

public class TestConfig : ISiteConfig
{
    public string Version {get; set;}
    public DateTime ReleaseDate {get; set;}

    public TestConfig(string version, DateTime releaseDate)
    {
         Version = version;
         ReleaseDate = releaseDate;
    }
}

Then you'd use Dependency Injection to inject instances of your configuration into the Controller.

public class MyController : Controller
{
    private readonly ISiteConfig Config;

    public MyController(ISiteConfig config)
    {
        Config = config;
    }

    [HttpGet()]
    public HttpStatusCodeResult Index()
    {
        var version = Config.Version;
        return new HttpStatusCodeResult(200);
    }
}


public class Startup
{
    public void Configure(IBuilder app)
    {
        ...
        app.UseServices(services =>
        {
            ...
            // Set up the dependencies
            services.AddTransient<ISiteConfig, SiteConfig>();
            ...
        });
        ...
    }
}

Now you can more easily unit test your action methods, because your unit tests can use the TestConfig class while the site can use the SiteConfig class. And also if you want to change how your configuration is done, you don't have to replace strings in a bunch of different places. You'll have one class where you do so, the rest is strongly typed and easy to change without blowing up your application.

Your unit test might look like this:

//Arrange
var testConfig = new TestConfig("1.0", DateTime.Now );
var controller = new MyController(testConfig );  

//Act
var response = controller.Index();

//Assert
Assert.AreEqual(200, response.StatusCode);