I have setup some configuration transforms in my web.config for my connectionStrings, etc. But I have separated out some areas of my web.config into separate files, ex) appSettings.config.
How can I configure Visual Studio and MSBuild to perform config transformations on these additional config files?
I have already followed the approach of the web.config to relate the files together within my web application project file, but transformations are not automatically applied.
<ItemGroup>
<Content Include="appSettings.Debug.config">
<DependentUpon>appSettings.config</DependentUpon>
</Content>
</ItemGroup>
config (or any file) when you press F5 in Visual Studio. You can have different transformations based on the build configuration. This will enable you to easily have different app settings, connection strings, etc for Debug versus Release. If you want to transform other files you can do that too.
If you have a web application project, Right-click on web. config and choose Add Config Transform. This will add any config transforms that are missing from your project based on build configurations (i.e. if you have Production and Staging build configs, both will get a transform added).
By default the target managing the transformation (TransformWebConfig
) works only on web.config
file.
To make it work on your appSettings.config
file you'll have to :
Build Action
of your file to Content
TransformWebConfig
with ProjectConfigFileName=appSettings.config
and Configuration=$(Configuration)
.To call MSBuild TransformWebConfig
target for appSettings.config
just after the transformation of web.config
files, you need to add this at the end of your project file :
<PropertyGroup>
<!-- Name of your custom config file -->
<ConfigFileName>appSettings.config</ConfigFileName>
</PropertyGroup>
<PropertyGroup>
<!--
This property is used to handle circular dependency between
TransformWebConfig and our custom target TransformAppConfig
-->
<FirstRun Condition="$(FirstRun) == ''">true</FirstRun>
</PropertyGroup>
<!-- This target will be called one time after a call to TransformWebConfig -->
<Target Name="TransformAppConfig"
AfterTargets="TransformWebConfig"
Condition="$(FirstRun) == 'true'">
<MSBuild Projects="$(MSBuildProjectFile)"
Targets="TransformWebConfig"
Properties="ProjectConfigFileName=$(ConfigFileName);
Configuration=$(Configuration);
FirstRun=false"/>
</Target>
<!--
This target will be called one time before PreAutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings
to add $(ConfigFileName) to autoparameterization step
-->
<Target Name="AddToAutoParameterizationStep"
BeforeTargets="PreAutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings">
<ItemGroup>
<_WebConfigsToAutoParmeterizeCS Include="@(FilesForPackagingFromProject)"
Condition="('%(FilesForPackagingFromProject.Filename)%(FilesForPackagingFromProject.Extension)'=='$(ConfigFileName)') And !%(FilesForPackagingFromProject.Exclude)">
<TransformOriginalFile>$(AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStringsLocation)\original\%(DestinationRelativePath)</TransformOriginalFile>
<TransformOutputFile>$(AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStringsLocation)\transformed\%(DestinationRelativePath)</TransformOutputFile>
<TransformScope>$(_PackageTempDir)\%(DestinationRelativePath)</TransformScope>
</_WebConfigsToAutoParmeterizeCS>
<_WebConfigsToAutoParmeterizeCSOuputFiles Include="@(_WebConfigsToAutoParmeterizeCS->'%(TransformOutputFile)')">
</_WebConfigsToAutoParmeterizeCSOuputFiles>
</ItemGroup>
</Target>
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