The System.Configuration.SettingsContext class is the base class used by applications to provide contextual information to the settings provider. Although the class is not abstract, an application can choose to create a specialized class that inherits from System.Configuration.SettingsContext class and provides additional information to specific types of providers. The provider can then examine contextual settings when writing properties.

The primary purpose of the System.Configuration.SettingsContext class is to provide features that use the System.Configuration.SettingsBase class and related infrastructure. The System.Configuration.SettingsContext class provides additional feature-specific contextual information about the property data being stored by the System.Configuration.SettingsBase instance. Therefore, it is very simple to store additional information in a System.Configuration.SettingsContext class without deriving from it (or from other Settings* classes) in order to support additional feature-specific context information.

For example, ASP.NET uses the System.Configuration.SettingsContext class to pass along the username associated with the data managed by a System.Configuration.SettingsBase instance, as well as a property indicating whether the user is considered authenticated. In this way, ASP.NET uses the System.Configuration.SettingsContext class to identify authenticated versus anonymous Profile data.

Namespace: System.Configuration
Assembly: System (in System.dll)
Assembly Versions: 2.0.0.0, 4.0.0.0
Since: .NET 2.0