web.config file transform from command line

Question

I have two build environments to target; Release and Staging. The Web.config looks like this:

Answer 1

Using Build transform with Jenkins, I also see that web.config does not transform, however, the actual transformation takes place when you do the deploy. I use an all in one msbuild command to do the build and deploy together.

MSBuild MyProj.csproj /P:Configuration=Release /P:DeployOnBuild=True /P:DeployTarget=MsDeployPublish /P:MsDeployServiceUrl=https://your server/msdeploy.axd /P:AllowUntrustedCertificate=True /P:MSDeployPublishMethod=WMSvc /P:CreatePackageOnPublish=True /P:UserName=username /P:Password=password1 /P:DeployIISAppPath="Default Web Site or name of your website"

Once it has run you can verify on the server that transformation takes place.

Answer 2

Jonathan's answer is good. I tweaked it slightly to allow the original Web.config file to be retained. These are the lines I added to the bottom of my .csproj file:

  <!-- the step to copy the config file first avoids a 'File is being used by another process' error -->
  <Target Name="BeforeBuild">
    <Copy SourceFiles="Web.config" DestinationFiles="Web.temp.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="True" />
    <TransformXml Source="Web.temp.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="Web.config" />
  </Target>
  <Target Name="AfterBuild">
    <Copy SourceFiles="Web.temp.config" DestinationFiles="Web.config" OverwriteReadOnlyFiles="True" />
    <Delete Files="Web.temp.config" />
  </Target>

I can see that the web.config file is transformed by running a build within Visual Studio (or from a command line).

Answer 3

Tiny improvement over Jonathan's answer:

Using this line below for importing the web targets will allow to be compatible with any Visual Studio version. Note this is not tied to version v10.0

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v$(VisualStudioVersion)\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

Answer 4

If you add the following xml to the bottom of the .csproj file for your web application, you'll ensure that the config transformation occurs before every build:

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
    <TransformXml Source="Web.Base.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="Web.config" />
</Target>

Edit: In response to your comment, you should be able to use Web.config as the source parameter in the TransformXml task (see step #2). If you only want to perform the config transform in the build script, follow these instructions:

1) Import WebApplication.targets in your build script like so:

<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath32)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications\Microsoft.WebApplication.targets" />

2) Execute the TransformXml build task in your build script target:

<Target Name="MyBuildScriptTarget">
    <TransformXml Source="Web.config" Transform="Web.$(Configuration).config" Destination="Web.config" />
    ...other build tasks...
</Target>