Managing A Debug and Release Connection String

Question

What is a good approach to managing a debug and release connection string in a .NET / SQLServer application?

I have two SQL Servers, a production and a build/debug and I

Answer 1

As of 2018 for newer versions of Visual Studio, Microsoft has taken over the SlowCheetah extension. Installing this will give you an option to split the app.config file into three separate files. One is a base file that has code that always applies, and then you get an app.debug.config file and an app.release.config file.

Note that pulling this as a NuGet package in the project is not enough. If you want the Visual Studio UI menu option, you need to actually download the installer from the site below and run it. Then, install SlowCheetah specifically on any projects you want to use this on using NuGet.

Also note that the original SlowCheetah program by the original developer still exists, but use the one published by Microsoft for newer versions of Visual Studio.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=VisualStudioProductTeam.SlowCheetah-XMLTransforms