How to Check Site Configuration Inheritance

Question

I often use the inherits attribute of the <site> configuration node to make one site inherit another. Today, another SSE question made me ask myself how I can check to see if the context site inherits a specific site. I tried to find something in the Sitecore API for this but came up empty.

Does anyone know if there is a way to check if a site inherits another, aside from directly grabbing the Node from configuration and checking the attribute manually?

Answer 1

Here is a low complexity way of checking using Sitecore PowerShell Extensions. The solution is not very polished, but gets the job done.

---

First I wrote a script to check inheritance and saved it to a script library.

X-Demo/Content Editor/Context Menu/Check Inheritance

Close-Window
function Get-SiteConfiguration {
    param(
        [string]$Name
    )

    [Sitecore.Sites.SiteManager]::GetSite($Name).Properties
}

function Get-SiteName {
    param(
        [item]$Item
    )

    $itemName = $Item.Name
    [Sitecore.Configuration.Factory]::GetSiteInfoList() | 
        Where-Object { $_.RootPath -eq "/sitecore/content" -and $_.StartItem -eq "/$($itemName)" }
}

$sites = Get-SiteName -Item (Get-Item -Path .)
$inheritedName = $null
$siteName = $null
foreach($site in $sites) {
    $siteName = $site.Name
    $siteConfig = Get-SiteConfiguration -Name $site.Name
    foreach($setting in $siteConfig) {
        if($setting.Key -eq "inherits") {
            $inheritedName = $setting.Value
            break
        }
    }
}

if($inheritedName) {
    Show-Alert "The item has a parent site of '$($siteName)' which inherits from '$($inheritedName)'."
} else {
    Show-Alert "The item has a parent site of '$($siteName)'."    
}

Second I added a simple rule so the check only works when you select the home item.

Now when I see this context menu script and alert message.

Checking /homeinherited

Checking /home

Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but for zero downtime and in the time it took to eat a bowl of cereal it gets the job done; looking for an icon may have taken all night though. This solution is essentially what Dmytro suggested but without the need to deploy compiled code on the server.

Answer 2

You can check the site properties:

var site = Sitecore.Context.Site;
// or site = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetSite("mywebsite");

string inherits = site.Properties["inherits"];

If the site has been configured with the inherits property then the return value will be the name of the website set, otherwise the value will be null.

Answer 3

There is no API for this. Inheritance information is not preserved after parsing configuration files.

In the Sitecore.Sites.ConfigSiteProvider, here's the method that deals with site inheritance:

private void ResolveInheritance(SiteCollection sites, SafeDictionary<string, Site> siteDictionary)
{
  foreach (Site site in (Collection<Site>) sites)
  {
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(site.Properties["inherits"]))
    {
      this.AddInheritedProperties(site, siteDictionary);
    }
  }
}

And here's the decompiled code of AddInheritedProperties:

private void AddInheritedProperties(Site site, SafeDictionary<string, Site> siteDictionary)
{
  string index = site.Properties["inherits"];
  Site site1 = siteDictionary[index];
  Assert.IsNotNull((object) site1, "Could not find base site '{0}' for site '{1}'.", new object[2] { index, site.Name });

  foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> property in (SafeDictionary<string, string>) site1.Properties)
  {
    if (!site.Properties.ContainsKey(property.Key))
    {
      site.Properties[property.Key] = property.Value;
    }
  }
}

As you can see, it just copies all properties from the original site definition to the inherited one. Inheritance metadata is not preserved.

As a conclusion, if you need to know site inheritance in your code, you'll have to parse Sitecore configuration manually.