Asp – Possible to use preprocessor directives in web.config

asp.net

I'd like to be able to do this so that I could do something like:

#if DEBUG
    <!--<customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="Error.aspx" />-->
#else
    <customErrors mode="On" defaultRedirect="Error.aspx" />

Possible? Would make life a little easier.

Best Answer

You can use something called a "Web Deployment Project" to swap out different config sections.

Just add custom .config files to your soulution and configure the WDP.

After that, you can just point the debug location to the deploy location and you should be set.

Related Solutions

CustomErrors mode=”Off”

This has been driving me insane for the past few days and couldn't get around it but have finally figured it out:

In my machine.config file I had an entry under <system.web>:

<deployment retail="true" />

This seems to override any other customError settings that you have specified in a web.config file, so setting the above entry to:

<deployment retail="false" />

now means that I can once again see the detailed error messages that I need to.

The machine.config is located at

32-bit

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\[version]\config\machine.config

64-bit

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\[version]\config\machine.config

Hope that helps someone out there and saves a few hours of hair-pulling.

C# – .NET Configuration (app.config/web.config/settings.settings)

Any configuration that might differ across environments should be stored at the machine level, not the application level. (More info on configuration levels.)

These are the kinds of configuration elements that I typically store at the machine level:

When each environment (developer, integration, test, stage, live) has its own unique settings in the c:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG directory, then you can promote your application code between environments without any post-build modifications.

And obviously, the contents of the machine-level CONFIG directory get version-controlled in a different repository or a different folder structure from your app. You can make your .config files more source-control friendly through intelligent use of configSource.

I've been doing this for 7 years, on over 200 ASP.NET applications at 25+ different companies. (Not trying to brag, just want to let you know that I've never seen a situation where this approach doesn't work.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

CustomErrors mode=”Off”

C# – .NET Configuration (app.config/web.config/settings.settings)

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