Proper way to hide API keys in Git

Question

In my C# project have APIKeys.cs file which have const strings with API keys. I want those strings to be empty in Git server but have actual API keys in my local computer. S

Answer 1

Isn't this very similar to the problem of injecting a build number into your component? The way I do that is to have a pre-build step that generates a file called AssemblyVersionInfo.cs based on some environment variable. You could do the same thing with your API Keys.

In the pre-build step for the component that compiles in the API keys put something like this:-

if not defined API_KEY set API_KEY=DEFAULT_KEY
echo public class ApiKeys>"$(SolutionDir)src\ApiKeys.cs"
echo {>>"$(SolutionDir)src\ApiKeys.cs"
echo public const string Key="%API_KEY%";>>"$(SolutionDir)src\ApiKeys.cs"
echo }>>"$(SolutionDir)src\ApiKeys.cs"

Then you set either a user or system environment variable on your local machine with the real key in it.

setx API_KEY THE_REAL_KEY

To avoid Git wanting to commit the file just add it to the .gitignore.