Factoring Web.Config Configuration

There are many things which are there, but you didn’t quite know existed!
You might not have heard of a little known attribute called configSource, which can be specified on a section which allows the definition of the section to live in another actual file.
Consider the profile feature that allows you to specify a bunch of named properties that should be managed per-user, along with type information and other metadata. This information is currently written within the <profile> section within <system.web> in web.config.
This always sounds me odd. I have always thought it would be better if this information was in a separate .profile kind of file. Well, with configSource, you can do just that...
For example, see how can I use it into my web.config:
...
<system.web>
...
<profile configSource="profile.config" />
...
</system.web>
...
Once I've done that, I can now add a profile.config file into my web site as follows:
<profile>
<properties>
<add name="Name" type="String" />
<add name="Age" type="Int32" />
</properties>
</profile>

Everything continues to work as before. Essentially I've cut out the actual profile section from web.config and moved it into a separate file, which might help manage config a bit better, simply by splitting it out, as well as perhaps make me a bit happier that profile information isn't mixed with configuration! Note that you should probably still name these additional files as .config, so they aren't served out.