I have an asp.net project that is using Entity Framework that is used on several different client servers. This means a different web.config for each for connectionstrings and app settings.
Hasn't been an issue but I changed something that altered the web.config file recently and I manually had to adjust this for each client, I also have to exclude the web.config file in updates to ensure their own one is not overwritten.
What I would like to achieve is store these settings in maybe another config file that the project can pick up and use. Maybe that on Globals Application_Start gets these and imports them/overwrites the current web.config file perhaps.
Essentially I don't want to affect the current code that uses the connection string and ConfigurationManager.AppSettings used throughout the project but I do want to be able to let the web.config file update for each client and use a seperate file for some settings.
NOTE: I do not have access to publish directly to each server so I can't simply write a different deploy web.config for each one. I have to publish the files locally, store as zip and automated routine on servers downloads and extracts accordingly.
EDIT:
Please do say if this is considered a bad idea but an idea I had was to put something similar in Global.asax Application_Start method:
Does config file exist?
If no, create file and append all current settings in web.config
If yes, open and import those settings to the current web.config overwriting the original values
Hopefully then in a few weeks time, after I have asked all clients to perform a manual update they will have this code and I can begin to include the web.config in updates.
In VS, inside the Build menu, the last item is Configuration Manager.
In here you can specify various different release environments which can each have their own web.config transforms.
This is normally used for production/staging/test environments. However, I can see no reason why you could not use this and have a configuration file for each of your servers/environments.
You will then need to create the transformations for each environment, by rightclicking the web.config, then selecting Add Config Transform.
each of the environments you had setup can then override the settings in the main web.config. (That now acts as a template/default settings)
e.g.
In Web.EnvironmentA.Config
<add key="ConnectionString" value="ConStringA" xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(key)"/>
In Web.EnvironmentB.Config
<add key="ConnectionString" value="ConStringB" xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(key)"/>
Then when you do a publish, you simply setup which config file to use. If you use Azure or the VS publish method, it will save each of these settings, so then you can simply push to the relevant environment easily.
Just make sure you test this works as you intent first, before you start publishing everywhere ;)
Related
I have a web service project where I have one main web.config file and then different environment specific files as well like web.Staging.config/web.QE.config etc. Now, I am following this: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ManagingMultipleConfigurationFileEnvironmentsWithPreBuildEvents.aspx to add a prebuild event to my project to copy the configuration specific config file to the main web.config file but the problem is, it copies it without transforming and hence resulting into something like below:
<add key="somekey" value="Development" xdt:Transform="Replace" xdt:Locator="Match(key)"/>
My question is, is there a way to keep the transformed config files ready to be copied while building the project?
You can use SlowCheetah to do the transform for you.This work with multiple environment QA, UAT etc. This also has provided as nuget package
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioProductTeam.SlowCheetah-XMLTransforms
Recent new feature in 2017 15.8.4 has feature for managing secret. Its worth to have a look
https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Visual-Studio-Toolbox/Managing-User-Secrets/?utm_source=vs_developer_news&utm_medium=referral
I have developed a small windows service which performs few database operations. I have to give an option to the user to change server name on post-deploy. if user changes in app.config it doesn't affect the service, it is still reading connection strings from AppName.exe.config.
Here what I have tried.
<connectionStrings>
<add name="testString" connectionString="Data Source=ServerAddresss;Initial Catalog=DatabaseName;Integrated Security=True;" />
</connectionStrings>
C# code,
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ProjectName.Properties.Settings.testString"].ConnectionString);
This returns a server connection string from AppName.exe.config file but I want to access it from App.config file.
can someone help me out in this?
App.config and AppName.exe.config aren't exactly separate - AppName.exe.config is the build output of app.config.
In other words, once the service is deployed, there shouldn't even be an app.config to change, and if there is, changing it won't do anything. AppName.exe.config is where your application gets "app.config" values.
If you need different configuration values for different environments, take a look at config transformations. They allow you to change or replace sections or individual values for different configurations such as debug, release, or other custom configurations.
This is useful because it means that all of the connection strings are part of the project and are in source control. You can do without this and just edit the config file in place on the server, but then there will be nothing in source control indicating where the connection string came from. And then if you redeploy the service the change will be overwritten unless someone remembers to make the same change every time. Having it in source control is much better.
For some reason that I do not understand, you can right-click a web.config and select "Add Config Transforms", but you can't do that with an app.config. Maybe there's a good reason.
You can install this extension which enables the same behavior for app.config. Then you can right-click on app.config and add a transformation for another configuration, like Release.
In that file (app.Release.config) add this:
<connectionStrings xdt:Transform="Replace">
<add name="testString" connectionString="...your Release connection string..." />
</connectionStrings>
When you build and deploy using the Release configuration it will replace the connectionStrings section with this one, leaving everything else just as it is. You can also right-click app.Release.config and select "Preview Config Transforms" to see the transformed file side-by-side with the original.
You should be able to just pull in an arbitrary file with a ConfigurationFileMap
System.Configuration.ConfigurationFileMap fileMap = new ConfigurationFileMap(strConfigPath); //Path to your config file
System.Configuration.Configuration configuration = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.OpenMappedMachineConfiguration(fileMap);
This question is a possible duplicate of: Using ConfigurationManager to load config from an arbitrary location
Also, you'll have to be sure that the service is restarted after updating the config file (either config file).
I have done a project in C#.NET where my database file is an Excel workbook. Since the location of the connection string is hard coded in my coding, there is no problem for installing it in my system, but for other systems there is.
Is there a way to prompt the user to set a path once after the setup of the application is completed?
The answers I got was "Use App.Config"... can anyone tell what is this App.config and how to use it in my context here?
At its simplest, the app.config is an XML file with many predefined configuration sections available and support for custom configuration sections. A "configuration section" is a snippet of XML with a schema meant to store some type of information.
Overview (MSDN)
Connection String Configuration (MSDN)
Settings can be configured using built-in configuration sections such as connectionStrings or appSettings. You can add your own custom configuration sections; this is an advanced topic, but very powerful for building strongly-typed configuration files.
Web applications typically have a web.config, while Windows GUI/service applications have an app.config file.
Application-level config files inherit settings from global configuration files like machine.config. Web also applications inherit settings from applicationHost.config.
Reading from the App.Config
Connection strings have a predefined schema that you can use. Note that this small snippet is actually a valid app.config (or web.config) file:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="MyKey"
connectionString="Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=ABC;"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>
Once you have defined your app.config, you can read it in code using the ConfigurationManager class. Don't be intimidated by the verbose MSDN examples; it's actually quite simple.
string connectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyKey"].ConnectionString;
Writing to the App.Config
Frequently changing the *.config files is usually not a good idea, but it sounds like you only want to perform one-time setup.
See: Change connection string & reload app.config at run time which describes how to update the connectionStrings section of the *.config file at runtime.
Note that ideally you would perform such configuration changes from a simple installer.
Location of the App.Config at Runtime
Q: Suppose I manually change some <value> in app.config, save it and then close it. Now when I go to my bin folder and launch the .exe file from here, why doesn't it reflect the applied changes?
A: When you compile an application, its app.config is copied to the bin directory1 with a name that matches your exe. For example, if your exe was named "test.exe", there should be a ("text.exe.config" in .net framework) or ("text.dll.config" in .net core) in your bin directory. You can change the configuration without a recompile, but you will need to edit the config file that was created at compile time, not the original app.config.
1: Note that web.config files are not moved, but instead stay in the same location at compile and deployment time. One exception to this is when a web.config is transformed.
.NET Core
New configuration options were introduced with .NET Core and continue with the unified .NET (version 5+). The way that *.config files works hasn't fundamentally changed, but developers are free to choose new, more flexible configuration paradigms.
As with .NET Framework configuration .NET Core can get quite complex, but implementation can be as simple as a few lines of configuration with a few lines of c# to read it.
Configuration in ASP.NET Core
Configuration in .NET Core
Simply, App.config is an XML based file format that holds the Application Level Configurations.
Example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<add key="key" value="test" />
</appSettings>
</configuration>
You can access the configurations by using ConfigurationManager as shown in the piece of code snippet below:
var value = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["key"];
// value is now "test"
Note: ConfigurationSettings is obsolete method to retrieve configuration information.
var value = System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["key"];
App.Config is an XML file that is used as a configuration file for your application. In other words, you store inside it any setting that you may want to change without having to change code (and recompiling). It is often used to store connection strings.
See this MSDN article on how to do that.
Just to add something I was missing from all the answers - even if it seems to be silly and obvious as soon as you know:
The file has to be named "App.config" or "app.config" and can be located in your project at the same level as e.g. Program.cs.
I do not know if other locations are possible, other names (like application.conf, as suggested in the ODP.net documentation) did not work for me.
PS. I started with Visual Studio Code and created a new project with "dotnet new". No configuration file is created in this case, I am sure there are other cases.
PPS. You may need to add a nuget package to be able to read the config file, in case of .NET CORE it would be "dotnet add package System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager --version 4.5.0"
You can access keys in the App.Config using:
ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["KeyName"]
Take alook at this Thread
Just adding one more point
Using app.config some how you can control application access, you want apply particular change to entire application use app config file and you can access the settings like below
ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Key"]
Application settings enable you to store application information dynamically. Settings allow you to store information on the client computer that shouldn't be included in the application code (for example a connection string), user preferences, and other information you need at runtime.
To add an application configuration file to a C# project:
In Solution Explorer, right-click the project node, and then select Add > New Item.
The Add New Item dialog box appears.
Expand Installed > Visual C# Items.
In the middle pane, select the Application Configuration File template.
Select the Add button.
A file named App.config is added to your project.
take a look at this article
I have a Windows Service that I'm creating and I'm wondering what options are available in order for me let developers configure the service.
The service is part of an over all larger open source project and hence the service is going to be installed on lots of different machines.
Normal I would use a web/app.config for this but I'm not sure if this is possible.
Hence I am looking to so how others handle this case.
you do as you expect. You use the app.config, which will be renamed to <exeName>.configwhen the project is built and then <exeName>.config will be read by the service called <exeName>.
Settings are applied in a layered way and may come from other configuration files on the machine, such as machine.config. You can read about how configuration is handled on MSDN
EDIT
In response to comment: A service will only read the config when it starts (for perf reasons). If you want to reload the config file later, you need to handle that yourself I think.
You could read the last modified date/time of the config file to determine if the file has been changed, or setup a file system watcher and then tell the configuration manager to reload that section again next time it is read, by calling ConfigurationManager.RefreshSection("appSettings") and that section will be reloaded from disk when you next access it. See the ConfigurationManager MSDN docs
You can just use a .config file with the same name as the exe that is the service.
If your service runs as MyService.exe, it's config file would be MyService.exe.config.
In Visual Studio, just add an Application Configuration file. This will add an app.config file to the project.
You can then access things like AppSettings and ConnectionStrings using the ConfigurationManager class, just like you do with ASP.Net applications.
If we can have more than one .config files, we can share one config file with other projects and put private configuration into another. Visual Studio 2008 will be confused?
No, except for the <appSettings> node which has a special file= attribute which works in a "cummulative" manner, all configuration sections are single shot affairs - you have it, and you have one of it exactly - or you have nothing.
<appSettings file="common.appsettings.config">
<add key="private1" value="value1" />
</appSettings>
This will read in the contents of the common.appsettings.config file and anything that's not being overwritten by an explicit value in your own config here is being used from that external config file.
You cannot add additional "private" info to an existing configuration section, as far as I know.
Visual Studio 2010 has support for multiple .config files. It is one feature of new web application packaging and deployment system. We can create now separate web.config files for each configuration we have for application. But for 2008 there are no support for multi config files, you can workaround this by adding two config files and rename them in build time
Example:
private.config
public.config
on pre-msbuild event merge these two files
rename merged file, it should be web.config or app.config
Hope this helps...
s
You can have multiple web config for each directory although only one config section handler.
The configuration files are hierarchical from general to specific. Configuration files further down in the hierarchy override any settings from the previous ones. So if you have a solution that includes a master web.config file, any web.config files in your projects override it and are specific and visible only to those projects. If a project is comprised of several folders, you can add a web.config file to each of those as well, again with different settings that also override any of those set above. But I caution over-engineering this or you may have difficulty with a trickle-down of certain property values or loopholes in security if it is security that you are configuring at each level.
Each config section can be put in an external file, and referenced from the main app.config / web.config via the configSource attribute. However, you will have to write custom section handlers for each custom section / external config file that you want to write, which may get a little tedious. In addition, the appSettings section can be externalised and referenced via the same mechanism.