---
title: Get section settings
summary: OP-10 operation detail page.
status: draft
owner: Framework.NCore maintainers
last_reviewed: 2026-10-02
library: SAIF.NetCore.EnvironmentClient
reference_type: package
---

# Get section settings

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Owner | `GetSectionSettings` |
| Trigger | Consumer call |
| Inputs | `section` |
| Outputs | A new, detached `Dictionary<string, string>` of the matching entries from the global `Settings` dictionary |

## Steps
1. Call `LoadSection` for `section`.
   - 1.1. This always runs the refresh check first: an empty global cache (or any call once the server's `lastRefreshed` timestamp has advanced, probed at most every 60 seconds) clears and reloads the whole cache — `LastRefreshed` is set **before** that reload runs, not after it completes, so a failure partway through is not guaranteed to be retried on the very next call.
   - 1.2. If the (lowercased) `section` key is already recorded in the `Sections` cache, `LoadSection` returns immediately with no network call; otherwise it acquires `SectionsSemaphore`, **re-checks** `Sections` under the lock, and only then calls the Environment API. A successful fetch with 1+ settings adds the section to `Sections`; a successful fetch with **zero** settings is removed from `Sections` if present and retried on the very next call; a non-success HTTP result or a malformed response throws `EnvironmentClientException` out of this call. But only a **nonempty** `section` is ever marked loaded; a caller explicitly passing `""` reaches the never-marked-loaded root case and is fetched again on every call ([BR-EC-13](../business-rules.md#br-ec-13-each-section-is-loaded-from-the-environment-api-at-most-once-per-cache-generation)).
   - > **Origin**: Steps 1.1–1.2 are implemented in [Load section](load-section.md) and [Refresh check and cache reload](refresh-check-and-cache-reload.md), and executed on behalf of this operation.
2. Compute `key = GetSectionKey(section)` (lowercased section name).
3. Filter the single global `Settings` `ConcurrentDictionary<string, ConfigSetting>` for every entry whose key starts with `"{key}."`, and copy each matching entry into a new `Dictionary<string, string>` — `Sections` itself is only a `HashSet<string>` of loaded section names, there is no per-section dictionary to read from directly ([BR-EC-12](../business-rules.md#br-ec-12-setting-keys-and-section-names-are-lowercased-on-lookup)). When `section` is an explicit `""`, `key` is also `""`, so the filter prefix is the literal string `"."`. Ordinary root settings loaded by step 1 are stored under their **bare, unprefixed** key (`StoreSettingInDictionary` omits the section segment entirely when `section` is empty), so those ordinary entries do not start with `"."` and are excluded from the bulk output. This is a prefix-match exclusion, not a guarantee that every possible stored key is excluded: the global dictionary holds every loaded setting regardless of originating section, so a key that itself happens to begin with a literal `.` character (nothing in the source forbids such a key) would still match the filter and be returned. Calling `GetSectionSettings("")` therefore loads the root section into the global cache as a side effect and does not expose ordinary bare-root entries, in contrast to `HasSetting`, which reads the bare, unprefixed key directly by exact match; `GetSettingValue`, by comparison, does not read the bare root directly either — a blank/omitted `section` there is substituted with `TrackName` before lookup ([BR-EC-11](../business-rules.md#br-ec-11-a-section-less-setting-request-resolves-in-the-application's-track-section)).
4. The returned dictionary's keys retain the full `"{section}.{key}"` prefix (they are not stripped back down to the bare key), and it is a freshly allocated copy — mutating it has no effect on the client's internal cache. If no keys match the prefix, an empty dictionary is returned.
5. [Developer override lookup](developer-override-lookup.md) is **not** consulted by this bulk read; only [Get setting value](get-setting-value.md) applies developer overrides.

## Process flow

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[GetSectionSettings section] --> B[Load section]
    B --> C["key = GetSectionKey(section)"]
    C --> D["Filter global Settings dictionary<br>by prefix key."]
    D --> E["Copy matches into a new DictionaryOfStringString<br>(keys keep the section.key prefix)"]
    E --> F[Return the detached copy]
```

## Sources
- `src/SAIF.NetCore.EnvironmentClient/SAIF.NetCore.EnvironmentClient/SAIF.NetCore.EnvironmentClient/BaseEnvironmentClient.cs`