web.config

[samsmithnz]

I'm adding a custom property to my web.config file, its the encrypted password for the SQL server. It looks like this:

 

<add key="SQLPassword" value="ywfzQ%<&(,;" />

 

Unfortunetly ASP.NET doesn't like the < in the middle of the string. Is there anyway that I can further encode this?? to prevent the error?

 

thanks

 

Sam

[bri189a]

Um, if it's proably because of the character as I'm sure you guessed, trying using the litteral, crap, my explanation sucks, like in C# if you wanted to display "\\myserver\myshare" you'd actually have to send the string variable "\\\\myserver\\myshare" because the back-slash is a message to the compiler for an escape sequence I think it's called, but with another back-slash behind it, it tells the compiler that you litterally want to use the back-slash as part of the string. It's proabably the same thing here, try putting a backslash in front of it if your doing it in C#, or look through the ASP.NET documentation and figure out what you need to pass to get the literal.

[samsmithnz]

Any idea what that escape code might be in VB?

[Robby]

Sam, I don't know if escapes would work in this case or not.

You can while encrypting the password (I assume that you're using a Key), keep looping through your're encrypter with new key values until you find one that does not contain any < chars. Just a crude idea.

[samsmithnz]

Sam, I don't know if escapes would work in this case or not.

You can while encrypting the password (I assume that you're using a Key), keep looping through your're encrypter with new key values until you find one that does not contain any < chars. Just a crude idea.

 

The problem is that I need to keep using the current encrpytion method this company uses if possible. Do you know what the esacape key for < is?

[Robby]

I may be wrong but I don't know if you can use escapes in that context.

[samsmithnz]

Yeh I just kind of figured that out too. BUT, I have found another solution. this guy here has a really good encryption algorithm that is xml (and hence web.config) friendly.

 

thanks for your help anyway.

[Derek Stone]

The most common approach for placing encrypted data, that is data that is already encrypted, in an XML file is to base-64 encode it. Simple and easy.