Unrecognized element exception in custom ConfigurationSection

Question

The problem is, as the title say I get an exception whenever I try to load a custom CustomConfiguration section from my .config file. The app.config file I try to load looks like this.

....
<configSections>
    <sectionGroup name="MainSection">
        ...
        <section name="Directories" type="MyNamespace.DirectoriesSettings, Assembly"/>
    </sectionGroup>
</configSections>
....

<MainSection>
    ...
    <Directories Count="1">
      <Directory id="1" Path="Some\Path" Working="And\Another\Path" Country="US"/>
    </Directories>

</MainSection>
....

And the code

namespace MyNamespace
{
    internal class DirectoriesSettings : ConfigurationSection
    {
        [ConfigurationProperty("Count")]
        public int Count { get { return Convert.ToInt32(base["Count"]); } }

        [ConfigurationProperty("Directories", IsDefaultCollection = true, IsRequired = true)]
        [ConfigurationCollection(typeof(DirectoryElement), AddItemName = "Directory", CollectionType = ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap)]
        public DirectoryElementCollection Directories { get { return (DirectoryElementCollection)base["Directories"]; } }

    }

    internal class DirectoryElementCollection : ConfigurationElementCollection
    {        
        protected override ConfigurationElement CreateNewElement()
        {
            return new DirectoryElement();
        }

        protected override object GetElementKey(ConfigurationElement element)
        {
            return ((DirectoryElement)element).Id;
        }
    }

    internal class DirectoryElement : ConfigurationElement
    {
        [ConfigurationProperty("id", IsKey = true, IsRequired = true)]
        public int Id
        {
            get { return Convert.ToInt32(this["id"]); }
            set { this["id"] = value; }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("Path", IsKey = false, IsRequired = true)]
        public string Path
        {
            get { return Convert.ToString(this["Path"]); }
            set { this["Path"] = value; }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("Working", IsKey = false, IsRequired = true)]
        public string Working
        {
            get { return Convert.ToString(this["Working"]); }
            set { this["Working"] = value; }
        }

        [ConfigurationProperty("Country", IsKey = false, IsRequired = true)]
        public string Country
        {
            get { return Convert.ToString(this["Country"]); }
            set { this["Country"] = value; }
        }
    }
}

And the code to use it

class SettingsContainer
{
    private const string PARENT_SECTION = "MainSection";

    ...
    private DirectoriesSettings _directoriesSettings;
    public DirectoriesSettings Directories { get { return _directoriesSettings; } }
    ...



    public SettingsContainer()
    {
        ...
        _directoriesSettings = (DirectoriesSettings)ConfigurationManager.GetSection(string.Format("{0}/Directories", PARENT_SECTION));
        ...
    }

}

The exception (Unrecognized element 'Directory') is thrown whenever I try to set the _directoriesSettings variable.

I think I am doing it right, but apparently I am missing something.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Solution:

I found where my problem was.

The property Directories inside DirectoriesSettings class should look like this

[ConfigurationCollection(typeof(DirectoryElement), AddItemName = "Directory", CollectionType = ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap)]
[ConfigurationProperty("", IsDefaultCollection = true, IsRequired = true)]  
public DirectoryElementCollection Directories { get { return (DirectoryElementCollection)this[""]; } }      

instead of

[ConfigurationCollection(typeof(DirectoryElement), AddItemName = "Directory", CollectionType = ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap)]
[ConfigurationProperty("Directories", IsDefaultCollection = true, IsRequired = true)]
public DirectoryElementCollection Directories { get { return (DirectoryElementCollection)base["Directories"]; } }