How can I use Web.debug.config in the built-in visual studio debugger server?

Question

How can I merge and make use of Web.debug.config in visual studio 2010 built-in debugger?

Answer 1

This is a known bug. That feature can be used right now only as part of the deploy process.

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/523221/have-web-debug-config-apply-during-development

Please upvote it, if you encounter this too, so this will be fixed ASAP.

Answer 2

This is actually quite simple to do and, believe it or not, it seems this is the way VS is designed to work.

Add the following lines verbatim right before the closing "Project" tag of the .csproj file of the project that contains web.config.

<UsingTask TaskName="TransformXml" AssemblyFile="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" /> <Target Name="Transform">     <MakeDir Directories="obj\$(Configuration)" Condition="!Exists('obj\$(Configuration)')" />     <TransformXml Source="Web.Config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="obj\$(Configuration)\Web.config" StackTrace="true" /> </Target> 

Put the following lines verbatim to the post-build event in the project properties of the project that contains the web.config file. Do this for each build configuration you want the transformations to run for.

"$(MSBUILDBINPATH)\msbuild" "$(ProjectPath)" /t:Transform /p:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName);Platform=AnyCPU xcopy "$(ProjectDir)obj\$(ConfigurationName)\Web.Config" "$(ProjectDir)". /F /R /Y