Include web.release.config in Web Deploy output

Question

By default when publishing a Web project using MSBuild/Visual Studio the config transforms are applied.

I would like to include the config transforms within the output.

Input

web.config  
web.Debug.config   
web.Release.config

Default Output

web.config

Desired output

web.config  
web.Debug.config   
web.Release.config

l think you can refer to [this document](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-forms/overview/deployment/visual-studio-web-deployment/deploying-extra-files) to add a custom target in the `Folderprofile.pubxml` to add the extra files. — Mr Qian, Jan 10 '20 at 07:10
@PerryQian-MSFT the fix worked thank-you. Whilst exploring this, I also looked at handling this via parameters within MSBuild WebDeploy, but these did not seem to take any effect - I have posted this example below for reference - however, it did not take any effect. — uniquelau, Jan 14 '20 at 18:39

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 09 '20 at 16:53

Update the files Build Action to Content using Visual Studio (e.g. right click, properties)

The Publish tasks will still transform the files, so we need to tell MSBuild, that we do not want to transform those files when publishing.

This can be achieved by passing the following parameters into MSBuild:

/p:ProfileTransformWebConfigEnabled=false /p:MarkWebConfigAssistFilesAsExclude=false

If you are working within Visual Studio, you test this behavior by adding these properties to a folder publish profile PublishProfile.xml

<!-- Disable Web.config Transforms -->
<ProfileTransformWebConfigEnabled>false</ProfileTransformWebConfigEnabled>
<MarkWebConfigAssistFilesAsExclude>false</MarkWebConfigAssistFilesAsExclude>

This does not seem to work in newer versions of MSBuild/Visual Studio. — uniquelau, Jan 14 '20 at 18:39
Brilliant seems to have worked for me using msbuild when doing those two mentioned /p values. Many thanks — Andrew, Apr 14 '21 at 08:53

Mr Qian · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-13T07:43:07.793

Include web.release.config in Web Deploy output

By default, when publishing a website, VS does not package web.debug.config and web.release.config but only the web.config.

To achieve what you want, you can add a custom target into publishprofile.pubxml to include these extra files.

Please try this:

<Target Name="CustomCollectFiles">
          <ItemGroup>
            <AdditionFiles Include="xxxxxxxxxxx\Web.Debug.config;xxxxxxxxx\Web.Release.config">
            </AdditionFiles>
            <FilesForPackagingFromProject Include="%(AdditionFiles.Identity)">
               <DestinationRelativePath>%(RecursiveDir)%(Filename)%(Extension)</DestinationRelativePath>
            </FilesForPackagingFromProject>
          </ItemGroup>
     </Target>
     <PropertyGroup>
          <CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>
               CustomCollectFiles;
               $(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn);
          </CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackageDependsOn>

          <CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
               CustomCollectFiles;
               $(CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn);
          </CopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForMsdeployDependsOn>
     </PropertyGroup>

And then you will find these files in the Publish folder when you finishing Publish step.

Hope it could help you.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '20 at 20:12

I was using Azure Dev Ops Server, and I wanted to run the Release transform on build, but also have the possibility to run additional transforms per pipeline target. In my case to change the SessionDb connection string

I added /p:MarkWebConfigAssistFilesAsExclude=false to the build parameters

I set my web.Prod.config to <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>

I was still getting a NullReference exception when doing the transform. I had to remove

<compilation xdt:Transform="RemoveAttributes(debug)" />

from the prod config transform because that property was removed with the release config transform.

Include web.release.config in Web Deploy output

3 Answers3