Following our previous article, where we discussed the procedure to parse Standard Parameters in the Sophis Risk.config file, this main objective of this article is to extend the same to the Custom Parameters.

Note that all the examples listed in this article are based on Sophis Value 4.3.1 Toolkit and have been tested on VS 2008 and .Net Framework version 3.5.

Custom Parameters in Risk.config file

As the name implies, <CustomParameters/> are specific to the client applications and are accessible via Sophis API. Here is the sample config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
	<configSections/>
	<Common/>
	<SophisEventConnection/>
	<APIConfiguration>
		<Toolkit>
			<DLLs/>
			<AssemblyDLLs/>
			<CustomParameters>
				<clear />
				<add Section="Section1" Entry="key" Value="value" />
				<add Section="Section2" Entry="key" Value="value" />
				<add Section="Section2" Entry="key" Value="value" />
				<add Section="Section3" Entry="key" Value="value" />
				<add Section="Section3" Entry="key" Value="value" />
				<add Section="Section3" Entry="key" Value="value" />
			</CustomParameters>
		</Toolkit>
	</APIConfiguration>
</configuration>

Retrieving Custom Parameters directly from the Risk.config in C++/CLI

try
{
	ExeConfigurationFileMap^ fileMap = gcnew ExeConfigurationFileMap();
	System::String^ file = gcnew System::String("Risk.config");
	fileMap->ExeConfigFilename = file;

	System::Configuration::Configuration^ config =
		ConfigurationManager::OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel::None);
	if(config)
	{
		APIConfigurationGroup^ api =
			(APIConfigurationGroup^)config->SectionGroups->Get("APIConfiguration");
		if(api)
		{
			ToolkitSection^ toolkit = (ToolkitSection^) api->Toolkit;
			if(toolkit)
			{
				for each(ToolkitCustomParameter^ param in toolkit->CustomParameters)
				{
					std::string sSection = msclr::interop::marshal_as<std::string>(param->Section);
					std::string sKey = msclr::interop::marshal_as<std::string>(param->Entry);
					std::string sValue = msclr::interop::marshal_as<std::string>(param->Value);
				}
			}
		}
	}
}
catch(ConfigurationErrorsException^ e)
{
}

Retrieving Custom Parameters after Sophis API is initialized

Following is the C# method and note that unlike the previous Sophis Toolkit API versions , this method (and the remaining overloads) are limited to retrieving Custom Parameters. Please refer to the previous article for more information about retrieving Standard Parameters.

CSMConfigurationFile.getEntryValue(string section, string entry, ref string value, string defaultValue);

Checkout the ConfigurationFileWrapper class for the native C++ methods.

Conclusion

With this, we conclude the quick review of various techniques involved in parsing the Sophis Risk.config file.

As far as launching (or executing) the client application is concerned, we need to understand the Bootstrap.config, Application.exe.config and the role played by the SophisAssemblyResolver.dll during startup. Brief article on this topic should be available shortly.

Sophis has moved from risk.ini to Risk.config to store the application’s configuration in the latest version of Risque and Value. While this is a standard XML file and can be parsed in number of ways, the main objective of this article is to demonstrate the functionality provided by the Sophis Toolkit API to handle the configuration file.

Note that all the examples listed in this article are based on Sophis Value 4.3.1 Toolkit and have been tested on VS 2008 and .Net Framework version 3.5.

Standard Parameters in Risk.config file

In this section, we will look at the sample code to retrieve the standard Sophis configuration parameters like <Log/> and <RisqueDatabase/>. Note that all the application specific parameters are stored in the <CustomParameters/> section and the sample code to parse these parameters will be provided in the next article.

Here is the outline of the Risk.config file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
	<configSections/>
	<Common>
		<NamingService/>
		<Licensing/>
		<Log Verbosity="Debug" AppendDate="false" ClearFile="true"/>         
		<RisqueDatabase ConnectionTag="demo" User="demo"
			Password="EINBKNDCHKPPBHPKEPFCDBLIAIAEGCAD" Server="RISK" />
	</Common>
	<SophisEventConnection>
		<Coherency/>
		<ConnectionOptions/>
		<Quotation/>
	</SophisEventConnection>
	<APIConfiguration>
		<Toolkit>
			<DLLs/>
			<AssemblyDLLs/>
			<CustomParameters/>
		</Toolkit>
		<API/>
	</APIConfiguration>
</configuration>

Retrieve parameters after the Sophis API is initialized

Following is the sample code that can be used to retrieve the configuration once the Sophis API is initialized. Note that the object ProgramConfiguration.Current is valid only when the Sophis API is sucessfully initialized.

Read RisqueDatabase Parameters

string dbUser="";
string dbPass="";
string dbServer="";
if ((ProgramConfiguration.Current != null) && (ProgramConfiguration.Current.Configuration != null))
{
	CommonConfigurationGroup common = (CommonConfigurationGroup)ProgramConfiguration.Current.Configuration.SectionGroups.Get("Common");
	{
		DatabaseConnectionConfiguration dbConfig = common.RisqueDatabaseSection;
		{
			dbUser = dbConfig.User;
			dbPass = dbConfig.Password;
			dbServer = dbConfig.Server;
		}
	}
}

Read Log Parameters

string verbosity="";
string path="";
if ((ProgramConfiguration.Current != null) && (ProgramConfiguration.Current.Configuration != null))
{
	CommonConfigurationGroup common = (CommonConfigurationGroup)ProgramConfiguration.Current.Configuration.SectionGroups.Get("Common");
	{
		LogConfiguration log = (LogConfiguration)common.LogSection;
		{
			verbosity = log.Verbosity.ToString();
			path = log.Path;
		}
	}
}

Retrieve parameters directly from the config file

While the above examples assume that the Sophis API has been initialized, we could very well retrieve the configuration parameters directly from the config file. Here is an example showing the same:

Read RisqueDatabase Parameters

string dbUser="";
string dbPass="";
string dbServer="";
try
{
	ExeConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ExeConfigurationFileMap()
	{
		ExeConfigFilename = "Risk.config",
	};
	Configuration rootConfig = ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedExeConfiguration(fileMap, ConfigurationUserLevel.None);
	if (rootConfig)
	{
		CommonConfigurationGroup common = (CommonConfigurationGroup) rootConfig.SectionGroups.Get("Common");
		{
			DatabaseConnectionConfiguration dbConfig = common.RisqueDatabaseSection;
			{
				dbUser = dbConfig.User;
				dbPass = dbConfig.Password;
				dbServer = dbConfig.Server;
			}
		}
	}
}
catch (ConfigurationErrorsException e)
{
	Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
}

Namespace

Apart from the standard System and System.Configuration, you have to include the following entries to the namespace to use the Sophis Configuration functionality.

using sophis.configuration;
using sophis.misc;

Conclusion

All the latest versions of Sophis include a tool called SophisConfigurationManager.exe which can be used to manage the Risk.config file in a more intuitive way. While this functionality is not new to the Windows developers, the Sophis Configuration API certainly adds more flexibility to the toolkit developers.