Visual Studio 2010, asp.net mvc3 web.config for Debug and Release

Question

I want to use Web.Debug.config and Web.Release.config each.

But it does not work in Visual Studio 2010 And it works on actual server after deployment.

Web.Release.config

<appSettings>
    <add key="GOOGLE_MERCHANT_ID" value="LIVE_GOOGLE_MERCHANT_ID" xdt:Transform="Insert" xdt:Locator="Match(key)" />
</appSettings>

Web.Debug.config

<appSettings>
    <add key="GOOGLE_MERCHANT_ID" value="DEBUG_GOOGLE_MERCHANT_ID" xdt:Transform="Insert" xdt:Locator="Match(key)" />
</appSettings>

I have like above config files and I try to echo on screen the config value.

string t = WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["GOOGLE_MERCHANT_ID"]; Response.Write(t);

On Visual studio,

set as Release mode, and F5 (also I tried Build Solution(F6)) but it doesn't print anything.

So I try to Deployment package and install on server and run then it prints the right value.

How I do for that in Visual studio? I want to make sure everything OK before deploy package.

Please advise me~

Thank you!

[Edit]

Now I get it, thank you for everyone who gave me nice answer!

May I ask one more question please?

then what's this for?

If I change to Release or Debug then what effect to my project?

Answer 1

See this post https://stackoverflow.com/a/5734829/611288

As Jimmy says, the web.config transforms are only applied during the Web Publish Pipleline

Jimmy also supplies the following link for a hack: http://sedodream.com/2010/10/21/ASPNETWebProjectsWebdebugconfigWebreleaseconfig.aspx

Alternatively, create a test deploy that deploys locally and test the config settings there.

Answer 2

As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to build web.config when building your solution. You could get around this by executing an xml merge tool as a post-build event based on your selected build configuration. Something like XmlConfigMerge might help you.

Answer 3

I think you can't do this is visual studio. If you want to test your project on server, then try to test it on local iis instead of the actual server.