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    copied!<p>Use <a href="http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/69023d00-a4f9-4a34-a6cd-7e854ba318b5" rel="noreferrer">SlowCheetah</a> plugin. For more options and details of how to use SlowCheetah keep reading.</p> <p>As you have already noticed, there is no default and easy way to use different config files for a <em>Library type (.dll)</em> project. The reason is that the current thinking is: "You don't need to"! Framework developers reckon you need configuration for the executable file: be it a console, desktop, web, mobile app or something else. If you start providing configuration for a <em>dll</em>, you may end up with something I can call a <em>config hell</em>. You may no longer understand (easily) why this and that variables have such weird values coming seemingly from nowhere.</p> <p>"Hold on", - you may say, "but I need this for my integration/unit testing, and <em>it is</em> a library!". And that is true and this is what you can do (pick only one, don't mix):</p> <h1>1. SlowCheetah - transforms current config file</h1> <p>You can install <a href="http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/69023d00-a4f9-4a34-a6cd-7e854ba318b5" rel="noreferrer">SlowCheetah</a> - a Visual Studio plug-in that does all low level XML poking (or transformation) for you. The way it works, briefly:</p> <ul> <li>Install SlowCheetah and restart Visual Studio (Visual Studio > Tools > Extensions and Updates ... > Online > Visual Studio Gallery > search for "Slow Cheetah" )</li> <li>Define your solution configurations (<em>Debug</em> and <em>Release</em> are there by default), you can add more (right click on the solution in <em>Solution Explorer</em> > <em>Configuration Manager...</em> > <em>Active Solution Configuration</em> > <em>New...</em></li> <li>Add a config file if needed</li> <li>Right click on config file > <em>Add Transform</em> <ul> <li>This will create Transformation files - one per your configuration</li> <li>Transform files work as injectors/mutators, they find needed XML code in the original config file and inject new lines or mutate needed value, whatever you tell it to do</li> </ul></li> </ul> <h1>2. Fiddle with .proj file - copy-renames a whole new config file</h1> <p>Originally taken from <a href="http://icelava.net/forums/thread/2920.aspx" rel="noreferrer">here</a>. It's a custom MSBuild task that you can embed into Visual Studio <em>.proj</em> file. Copy and paste the following code into the project file</p> <pre><code>&lt;Target Name="AfterBuild"&gt; &lt;Delete Files="$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName).config" /&gt; &lt;Copy SourceFiles="$(ProjectDir)\Config\App.$(Configuration).config" DestinationFiles="$(TargetDir)$(TargetFileName).config" /&gt; &lt;/Target&gt; </code></pre> <p>Now create a folder in the project called <code>Config</code> and add new files there: <em>App.Debug.config</em>, <em>App.Release.config</em> and so on. Now, depending on your configuration, Visual Studio will pick the config file from a <code>Config</code> folder, and copy-rename it into the output directory. So if you had <em>PatternPA.Test.Integration</em> project and a <em>Debug</em> config selected, in the output folder after the build you will find a <em>PatternPA.Test.Integration.dll.config</em> file which was copied from <code>Config\App.Debug.config</code> and renamed afterwards.</p> <p>These are some notes you can leave in the config files</p> <pre><code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?&gt; &lt;configuration&gt; &lt;!-- This file is copied and renamed by the 'AfterBuild' MSBuild task --&gt; &lt;!-- Depending on the configuration the content of projectName.dll.config is fully substituted by the correspondent to build configuration file from the 'Config' directory. --&gt; &lt;/configuration&gt; </code></pre> <p>In Visual Studio you can have something like this</p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/uy2sh.png" alt="Project structure"></p> <h1>3. Use scripting files outside Visual Studio</h1> <p>Each build tool (like <a href="http://nant.sourceforge.net/" rel="noreferrer">NAnt</a>, <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/0k6kkbsd.aspx" rel="noreferrer">MSBuild</a>) will provide capabilities to transform config file depending on the configuration. This is useful if you build your solution on a build machine, where you need to have more control on what and how you prepare the product for release.</p> <p>For example you can use web publishing dll's task to transform any config file</p> <pre><code>&lt;UsingTask AssemblyFile="..\tools\build\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.Tasks.dll" TaskName="TransformXml"/&gt; &lt;PropertyGroup&gt; &lt;!-- Path to input config file --&gt; &lt;TransformInputFile&gt;path to app.config&lt;/TransformInputFile&gt; &lt;!-- Path to the transformation file --&gt; &lt;TransformFile&gt;path to app.$(Configuration).config&lt;/TransformFile&gt; &lt;!-- Path to outptu web config file --&gt; &lt;TransformOutputFile&gt;path to output project.dll.config&lt;/TransformOutputFile&gt; &lt;/PropertyGroup&gt; &lt;Target Name="transform"&gt; &lt;TransformXml Source="$(TransformInputFile)" Transform="$(TransformFile)" Destination="$(TransformOutputFile)" /&gt; &lt;/Target&gt; </code></pre>
 

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