How to swap Connection String when publishing a project?

Question

I can see that Web.config file contains two files:

-web.Debug.config
-web.Release.config

Inside this config files there is the following comment:

In the example below, the "SetAttributes" transform will change the value of "connectionString" to use "ReleaseSQLServer" only when the "Match" locator finds an atrribute "name" that has a value of "MyDB".

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="MyDB" 
    connectionString="Data Source=ReleaseSQLServer;Initial Catalog=MyReleaseDB;Integrated Security=True" 
    xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)"/>
</connectionStrings>

What is the "Match" locator ? I already have a connection String in Web.config So how do I set this up? should the main web.config file contain the production connection string or the other way around? I'm looking for adivices from people that have done similar things

Answer 1

We are using xdt:Transform="Replace" which basically replaces the connection string of our development DB and it works perfectly. See below:

Development connection string (in your case web.Debug.config):

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="MyDB" connectionString="Data Source=DebugSQLServer;Initial Catalog=MyDebugDB;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>

Production connection string (in your case web.Release.config):

<connectionStrings xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
    <add name="MyDB" connectionString="Data Source=ReleaseSQLServer;Initial Catalog=MyReleaseDB;Integrated Security=True" xdt:Transform="Replace" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />
</connectionStrings>