How do I configure a Visual Studio C# unit test solution to accept different runtime configurations?

Question

What I have

I have a unit test Visual Studio C# Solution (which runs webdriver tests, not that that's necessarily relevant). It runs via TeamCity. Currently the environment is hard-coded to "Dev" in one of the .cs files, and I manually change the code locally to run elsewhere when required.

What I want

A way to setup two projects in TeamCity - one to run on "Dev" environment and the other on "Test" environment. Obviously I can't use hard-coded values so I need some sort of set of configuration files that can be chosen at runtime, or possibly some sort of build parameters - but I have no clue how to do this or what will work.

(I didn't mention TeamCity in the question as it is not 100% relevant / just provides context --- as long as I can run the unit tests eg from the command prompt with parameters that can be passed in, that would do the trick.)

What I've tried

From what I've asked around, I don't believe I can use web.config as it's not a web solution but a unit test solution. I believe there is a mechanism to tell Configuration Manager what web.config file to use, so I'm hoping there's a similar mechanism that can be used for Unit Test projects. I've tried hunting down information on "build configurations" on "unit test projects" and a range of other searches, but it's a nightmare finding anything relevant.

Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm good with my basic programming, but if it requires messing around with configurations or build parameters, then I might need a more explicit 'how-to' from you.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Check this extension for Visual Studio https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/579d3a78-3bdd-497c-bc21-aa6e6abbc859

This allows you to create different config files for different build type. You need to create different build types each with a config file specific to that build type.

Answer 2

Ok as per my comments above, I tried a solution here: https://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/69023d00-a4f9-4a34-a6cd-7e854ba318b5

IT WORKED.

I'm now able to create App.Config transforms that automatically link to a Build Configuration. I can then specify the build configuration inside TeamCity.

The only trick was that the "Rebuild" target didn't work if there were no code changes but there was a difference in Configuration. (They use the same directory of the same Agent, and a rebuild is necessary). The workaround for this is to tick the 'Clean all files before build' option in TeamCity Version Control settings.