[background]

Web deployment rookie here trying to set up my first deployment project.  I created a "QA" build configuration and want to replace the connectionStrings section of web.config.

I created a file called QAconn.config that contains the QA version of my connectionStrings section.  Set up the config replacement on the Deployment Page of the WD project and it "just worked"!

[/background]

Here's my question:  I would rather not have the QAconn.config file included in my built website and I'd like to exclude the source safe files.  I added ExcludeFromBuild commands to the .wdproj file as specified in Using Web Deployment Projects with VS2005. 

If I hard code the file path to the files using the path to my working directory, the files are not excluded.  If I use the $(SourceWebPhysicalPath) syntax, I get an error during my build:

Error 71 QAConn.config(1): Could not find file 'C:\Sites\Demo\QA\QAConn.config'.
The path in the error is the Output Folder for my deployment.

Is the replacement .config file being blocked from deployment before it is used for config replacement?  I created the .config file w/in my VS website project and it currently lives in the same directory as the web.config file.  Is there a better place to put this file?

Thanks!

Kevin

Hi,

Since MSBuild won't be able to make config replacement if you use ExcludeFromBuild on your config files, you should use something like this (will delete QA*.config after the build process, based on your QA configuration) :

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
  <CallTarget Targets="DeleteConfigFiles"></CallTarget>
</Target>

<ItemGroup>
  <MyUnNeededDestFiles Include="$(SourceWebPhysicalPath)\$(Configuration)*.config" />
</ItemGroup>

<Target Name="DeleteConfigFiles">
  <Delete Files="@(MyUnNeededDestFiles->'$(OutputPath)\%(Filename)%(Extension)')" />
</Target>

<Target Name="AfterBuild">
      <CallTarget Targets="DeleteConfigFiles"></CallTarget>
</Target>
<ItemGroup>
      <ConfigFilesToExclude Include="$(OutputPath)\$(Configuration)*.config" />
</ItemGroup>
<Target Name="DeleteConfigFiles">
      <Delete Files="@(ConfigFilesToExclude)" />
</Target>

True this should work this way too.

To learn Web Deployment Project and MSBuild you can start by reading this :

http://waynebrantley.com/blogs/aspnetbytes/archive/2006/02/08/5.aspx