Configuration in SQLCLR Assembly

Hi,

I have an SQLCLR assembly which is required to connect to a remote WCF service. In order to do this in a host such as IIS you would need to store all your WCF configuration data (endpoints, types etc) in the Web.config or App.config (in a windows forms app). This begs the question: Where do you store configuration data for SQLCLR assemblies?

The System.Configuration assembly is available in the SQLCLR, but this assumes a Web or App config files exists? Does SQL have its own config file that you can keep your settings in which is called when the assembly is running from within the SQL process?

If this is not possible, should I rather be storing configuration data in the database itself?

This particular example relates to WCF configuration but is relevant for assemblies using Enterprise Library which is also config driven.

Any help would be appreciated.

Chris

You can use a config file with SQLCLR. Create a config file sqlservr.exe.config and place it in the same directory as the SQL Server executable (sqlservr.exe). Whatever is in that file will be parsed in when an appdomain is loaded.

However, config files are not supported as such, and there is no guarantee it will work in the future. In addition, there is no way to differentiate between config ettings for different databases.

So, use the best storage facility there is - the database.

Niels
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Hi Niels,

Thank you for your response. I will test out the sqlservr.exe.config today. I agree that as the application will be running in SQL that the best storage spce is the DB, this however does not solve the problem where you are using tools like EntLib or Technologies like WCF where they rely specifically on configuration files. I am not aware of anyway to make WCF or EntLib collect configuration data from a sql database rather than the Application configuration file.

Chris