Visual Studio: differentiate app.config for debug and release mode

Question

Is there a way to automatically use a separate app.config when building in release mode?

In other words, I want to test with one app.config, and release with another.

Currently, I keep a separate copy called app.config.production, and manually overwrite bin\Release\Application.exe.config after building for release.

Answer 1

I have recently posted a supremely belated response to a similar SO topic: https://stackoverflow.com/a/27546685/2798367

I will repeat it here for clarity:

This is somewhat late to the party, but I stumbled upon a nice way of implementing the web.transform approach for app.config files. (i.e. it makes use of the namespace http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform)

I think it is "nice" because it is a pure xml approach and doesn't require 3rd party software.

A parent / default App.config file is descended from, according to your various build configurations. These descendants then only override what they need to. In my opinion this is much more sophisticated and robust than having to maintain x number of config files which get copied in their entirety, such as in other answers.

A walkthrough has been posted here: http://mitasoft.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/multipleappconfig/

---

Look, Mom - No explicit post-build events in my IDE!

Answer 2

Unload the project in Solution Explorer via the context menu.

Edit the .csproj file via the context menu and add this:

<PropertyGroup>     <AppConfig>App.$(Configuration).config</AppConfig> </PropertyGroup>