How to select different app config for several build configurations

Question

I have a dll-type project that contains MSTest integration tests  On my machine the tests pass  and I want the same to happen on a CI server  I use TeamCity   But the tests fail  because I need to tweak some settings in app config  This is why I was thinking to have a separate second app config file that will hold the settings for CI server   So I would like to have    Sln   Proj   app config  I think this is required by VS    app Release config  This is a standalone independent config file    Thus if I select Release configuration in build config on CI  I would like to use app Release config file instead of app config  Problem This doesn t seem to be straightforward for simple  dll type projects  For web projects  I can do web config transformations  I found a hack how to do these transformations for a dll type project  but I am not a big fan of hacks   Question  What is a standard approach to tweak app config files depending on build config for  NET projects  such as Debug  Release

User · Answer

I have heard good things about SlowCheetah, but was unable to get it to work. I did the following: add am tag to each for a specific configuration.

Ex:

<PropertyGroup Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)' == 'UAT|AnyCPU'">
    <OutputPath>bin\UAT\</OutputPath>
    <PlatformTarget>AnyCPU</PlatformTarget>
    <DebugType>pdbonly</DebugType>
    <Optimize>true</Optimize>
    <DefineConstants>TRACE</DefineConstants>
    <ErrorReport>prompt</ErrorReport>
    <WarningLevel>4</WarningLevel>
    <AppConfig>App.UAT.config</AppConfig>
  </PropertyGroup>

User · Answer

After some research on managing configs for development and builds etc  I decided to roll my own  I have made it available on bitbucket at  https   bitbucket org brightertools contemplate wiki Home  This multiple configuration files for multiple environments  its a basic configuration entry replacement tool that will work with any text based file format   Hope this helps

User · Answer

See if the XDT  web config  transform engine can help you  Currently it s only natively supported for web projects  but technically there is nothing stopping you from using it in other application types  There are many guides on how to use XDT by manually editing the project files  but I found a plugin that works great  https   visualstudiogallery msdn microsoft com 579d3a78-3bdd-497c-bc21-aa6e6abbc859  The plugin is only helping to setup the configuration  it s not needed to build and the solution can be built on other machines or on a build server without the plugin or any other tools being required

User · Answer

Use SlowCheetah plugin  For more options and details of how to use SlowCheetah keep reading   As you have already noticed  there is no default and easy way to use different config files for a Library type   dll  project  The reason is that the current thinking is   You don t need to   Framework developers reckon you need configuration for the executable file  be it a console  desktop  web  mobile app or something else  If you start providing configuration for a dll  you may end up with something I can call a config hell  You may no longer understand  easily  why this and that variables have such weird values coming seemingly from nowhere    Hold on   - you may say   but I need this for my integration unit testing  and it is a library    And that is true and this is what you can do  pick only one  don t mix    1  SlowCheetah - transforms current config file  You can install SlowCheetah - a Visual Studio plug-in that does all low level XML poking  or transformation  for you  The way it works  briefly    Install SlowCheetah and restart Visual Studio  Visual Studio   Tools   Extensions and Updates       Online   Visual Studio Gallery   search for  Slow Cheetah    Define your solution configurations  Debug and Release are there by default   you can add more  right click on the solution in Solution Explorer   Configuration Manager      Active Solution Configuration   New    Add a config file if needed Right click on config file   Add Transform   This will create Transformation files - one per your configuration Transform files work as injectors mutators  they find needed XML code in the original config file and inject new lines or mutate needed value  whatever you tell it to do    2  Fiddle with  proj file - copy-renames a whole new config file  Originally taken from here  It s a custom MSBuild task that you can embed into Visual Studio  proj file  Copy and paste the following code into the project file   lt Target Name  AfterBuild  gt       lt Delete Files    TargetDir   TargetFileName  config    gt       lt Copy SourceFiles    ProjectDir  Config App   Configuration  config            DestinationFiles    TargetDir   TargetFileName  config    gt   lt  Target gt    Now create a folder in the project called Config and add new files there  App Debug config  App Release config and so on  Now  depending on your configuration  Visual Studio will pick the config file from a Config folder  and copy-rename it into the output directory  So if you had PatternPA Test Integration project and a Debug config selected  in the output folder after the build you will find a PatternPA Test Integration dll config file which was copied from Config App Debug config and renamed afterwards   These are some notes you can leave in the config files   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt configuration gt        lt  -- This file is copied and renamed by the  AfterBuild  MSBuild task -- gt        lt  -- Depending on the configuration the content of projectName dll config          is fully substituted by the correspondent to build configuration file          from the  Config  directory  -- gt    lt  configuration gt    In Visual Studio you can have something like this    3  Use scripting files outside Visual Studio  Each build tool  like NAnt  MSBuild  will provide capabilities to transform config file depending on the configuration  This is useful if you build your solution on a build machine  where you need to have more control on what and how you prepare the product for release   For example you can use web publishing dll s task to transform any config file   lt UsingTask AssemblyFile     tools build Microsoft Web Publishing Tasks dll      TaskName  TransformXml   gt    lt PropertyGroup gt       lt  -- Path to input config file -- gt         lt TransformInputFile gt path to app config lt  TransformInputFile gt       lt  -- Path to the transformation file -- gt           lt TransformFile gt path to app   Configuration  config lt  TransformFile gt       lt  -- Path to outptu web config file -- gt        lt TransformOutputFile gt path to output project dll config lt  TransformOutputFile gt   lt  PropertyGroup gt    lt Target Name  transform  gt       lt TransformXml Source    TransformInputFile                     Transform    TransformFile                     Destination    TransformOutputFile     gt   lt  Target gt

User · Answer

SlowCheetah and FastKoala from the VisualStudio Gallery seem to be very good tools that help out with this problem   However  if you want to avoid addins or use the principles they implement more extensively throughout your build integration processes then adding this to your msbuild  proj files is a shorthand fix   Note  this is more or less a rework of the No  2 of  oleksii s answer   This works for  exe and  dll projects        lt Target Name  TransformOnBuild  BeforeTargets  PrepareForBuild  gt       lt TransformXml Source  App Config app Base config  Transform  App Config app   Configuration  config  Destination  app config    gt     lt  Target gt    This works for web projects        lt Target Name  TransformOnBuild  BeforeTargets  PrepareForBuild  gt       lt TransformXml Source  App Config Web Base config  Transform  App Config Web   Configuration  config  Destination  Web config    gt     lt  Target gt    Note that this step happens even before the build proper begins   The transformation of the config file happens in the project folder   So that the transformed web config is available when you are debugging  a drawback of SlowCheetah    Do remember that if you create the App Config folder  or whatever you choose to call it   the various intermediate config files should have a Build Action   None  and Copy to Output Directory   Do not copy   This combines both options into one block   The appropriate one is executed based on conditions   The TransformXml task is defined first though    lt Project gt   lt UsingTask TaskName  TransformXml  AssemblyFile    MSBuildExtensionsPath  Microsoft VisualStudio v  VisualStudioVersion  Web Microsoft Web Publishing Tasks dll    gt   lt Target Name  TransformOnBuild  BeforeTargets  PrepareForBuild  gt       lt TransformXml Condition  Exists  App Config app Base config    Source  App Config app Base config  Transform  App Config app   Configuration  config  Destination  app config    gt       lt TransformXml Condition  Exists  App Config Web Base config    Source  App Config Web Base config  Transform  App Config Web   Configuration  config  Destination  Web config    gt   lt  Target gt

User · Answer

I m using XmlPreprocess tool for config files manipulation  It is using one mapping file for multiple environments or multiple build targets in your case   You can edit mapping file by Excel  It is very easy to use

User · Answer

I have solved this topic with the solution I have found here  http   www blackwasp co uk SwitchConfig aspx  In short what they state there is    by adding a post-build event       We need to add the following   if  Debug      ConfigurationName   goto  nocopy del    TargetPath  config  copy    ProjectDir  Release config     TargetPath  config   nocopy

User · Answer

Using the same as approach as Romeo  I adapted it to Visual Studio 2010      lt None Condition      Configuration       Debug    Include  appDebug App config    gt     lt None Condition      Configuration       Release    Include  appRelease App config    gt    Here you need to keep both App config files in different directories  appDebug and appRelease   I tested it and it works fine

User · Answer

You can try the following approach    Right-click on the project in Solution Explorer and select Unload Project  The project will be unloaded  Right-click on the project again and select Edit  lt YourProjectName gt  csproj  Now you can edit the project file inside Visual Studio  Locate the place in   csproj file where your application configuration file is included  It will look like          lt ItemGroup gt           lt None Include  App config   gt       lt  ItemGroup gt     Replace this lines with following          lt ItemGroup Condition      Configuration       Debug    gt           lt None Include  App Debug config   gt       lt  ItemGroup gt        lt ItemGroup Condition      Configuration       Release    gt           lt None Include  App Release config   gt       lt  ItemGroup gt    I have not tried this approach to app config files  but it worked fine with other items of Visual Studio projects  You can customize the build process in almost any way you like  Anyway  let me know the result

User · Answer

You should consider ConfigGen  It was developed for this purpose  It produces a config file for each deployment machine  based on a template file and a settings file  I know that this doesn t answer your question specifically  but it might well answer your problem   So rather than Debug  Release etc  you might have Test  UAT  Production etc  You can also have different settings for each developer machine  so that you can generate a config specific to your dev machine and change it without affecting any one else s deployment   An example of usage might be      lt Target Name  BeforeBuild  gt       lt Exec Command  C  Tools cfg -s   ProjectDir App Config Settings xls -t                  ProjectDir App config template xml -o   SolutionDir ConfigGen    gt        lt Exec Command  C  Tools cfg -s   ProjectDir App Config Settings xls -t           ProjectDir App config template xml -l -n   ProjectDir App config    gt   lt  Target gt    If you place this in your  csproj file  and you have the following files       ProjectDir App Config Settings xls  MachineName        ConfigFilePath   SQLServer          default             App config      DEVSQL005 Test                App config      TESTSQL005 UAT                 App config      UATSQL005 Production          App config      PRODSQL005 YourLocalMachine    App config        SQLEXPRESS     ProjectDir App config template xml    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8  standalone  yes   gt      lt configuration gt      lt appSettings gt          lt add key  ConnectionString  value  Data Source   SQLServer                Database DatabaseName  Trusted Connection True   gt      lt  appSettings gt   lt  configuration gt        then this will be the result     From the first command  a config file generated for each environment specified in the xls file  placed in the output directory   SolutionDir ConfigGen      solutiondir ConfigGen Production App config   lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8  standalone  yes   gt      lt configuration gt      lt appSettings gt          lt add key  ConnectionString  value  Data Source PRODSQL005              Database DatabaseName  Trusted Connection True   gt      lt  appSettings gt   lt  configuration gt    From the second command  the local App config used on your dev machine will be replaced with the generated config specified by the local  -l  switch and the filename  -n  switch

[.net] How to select different app.config for several build configurations

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