Web.Config, external file for system.serviceModel

Question

Using VS2010

I have the following in my web.config (detail removed).

<system.serviceModel>
    <behaviors />
    <services />
    <serviceHostingEnvironment multipleSiteBindingsEnabled="true"/>
    <bindings />
    <client />
</system.serviceModel>

I would like to use attribute configSource the same as appSettings can use to get the detail of these elements from another config file.

I have tried to apply configSource attribute to either system.serviceModel or to each of the sub nodes. However, I get the invalid blue wavvy line saying:

The 'configSource' attribute is not allowed

I refer to the second answer (by Tom Brothers) in this question which demonstrates what I would like.
Can a web.config read from an external xml file?

Additional
Here is the configuration from that post. Has invalid blue wavvy lines.

<connectionStrings configSource="web\config\connectionStrings.config" /> 
<appSettings configSource="web\config\appSettings.config" /> 
<system.diagnostics configSource="web\config\diagnostics.config" /> 
<system.serviceModel> 
    <bindings configSource="web\config\serviceModelBindings.config" /> 
    <behaviors configSource="web\config\serviceModelBehaviors.config" /> 
    <services configSource="web\config\serviceModelServices.config" /> 
    <client configSource="web\config\serviceModelClient.config" /> 
</system.serviceModel>

How can I use the configSource attibute in this case?

Well, you can't apply configSource to system.serviceModel since it's a config section group. How did you apply configSource to the underlying nodes? Can you include what that looks like so we can see the config file that's generating the errors? — David Hoerster
@David Hoerster: I have not been successful with that either (applying to underlying nodes). The linked article suggests it, although I cannot get it to work. I have adjusted my post to show the answer from that post. — Valamas
Yes, it is indeed a failing of Visual Studio. So you will have to live with permanent warnings in VS if you use this. — Abacus

marc_s marc_s · Accepted Answer · 2011-03-02T06:03:03

You cannot apply configSource= to <system.serviceModel> since that is a config section group - not a simple config section, and the configSource attribute is only available on simple configuration sections.

You should however absolutely be able to apply the configSource attribute to any of the nodes inside <system.serviceModel> - I do this all the time, in production systems - and it just works. Have you even really tried??

Or did you let yourself be scared off by Visual Studio... it might show you (and tell you) that configSource="...." is not allowed (by those wavy underlines) - but that's just a shortcoming in the Visual Studio editor - on the child nodes of <system.serviceModel>, it is allowed to have a configSource= attribute!

Can you show us (by editing your original question) what your e.g. serviceModelBehaviors.config looks like??

Also: is that file physically in the web\config subdirectory of your web application??

Web.Config, external file for system.serviceModel

1 Answers