.NET: Which Exception to Throw When a Required Configuration Setting is Missing?

Question

Here\'s a standard scenario:

if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(Configuration.AppSettings[\"foobar\"]))
   throw new SomeStandardException(\"Application not configured          


        

Answer 1

The ConfigurationElement class (which is the base class of many config-related classes, like ConfigurationSection) has a method called OnRequiredPropertyNotFound (there are other helper methods too). You can maybe call those.

The OnRequiredPropertyNotFound is implemented like this:

protected virtual object OnRequiredPropertyNotFound(string name) {
    throw new ConfigurationErrorsException(SR.GetString("Config_base_required_attribute_missing", new object[] { name }), this.PropertyFileName(name), this.PropertyLineNumber(name)); }