Config Transformation on NLog does not work

Question

I have a web project (ASP.NET MVC 4 project) that has a number of configurations stored in Web.Config and in NLog.config files.

I have

Answer 1

I also had this issue but in an ASP.NET MVC 5 project. I do not have any AfterBuild events only added one line in the csproj file in the tag for the NLog.config file:

<TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>

It looks like this tells the msbuild.exe to do the transformation upon build. My setup is two files NLog.Debug.config and NLog.Release.config used for transformations based on build configuration (/p:Configuration="Release").

<Content Include="NLog.config">
  <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
  <TransformOnBuild>true</TransformOnBuild>
</Content>
<None Include="NLog.Debug.config">
  <DependentUpon>NLog.config</DependentUpon>
  <IsTransformFile>True</IsTransformFile>
</None>
<None Include="NLog.Release.config">
  <DependentUpon>NLog.config</DependentUpon>
  <IsTransformFile>True</IsTransformFile>
</None>

Answer 2

I have been using both build time web.config transformation with SlowCheetah NuGet package and built-in deployment time transformation. For NLog.config files I have NLog.*.config files for each build environment. Previously each of those files had full NLog.config contents, and had a task in deployment to overwrite NLog.config with a specific NLog.*.config and delete all NLog.*.config afterwards.

Decided today to have these files to be transformable instead, similar to the way web.config is generated from web.template.config and web.template.*.config (with the help of ProjectName.wpp.targets file), but not replacing NLog.config at build time (don't want to have servers' log file paths in my localhost runs).

Here's how I've got it working - in ProjectName.wpp.targets file I've used OnAfterCopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage "event" to transform NLog.config file into the temporary intermediate directory (which is subsequently used for publishing). This is the full ProjectName.wpp.targets file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

  <!-- Make sure Web.config will be there even for package/publish -->
  <Target Name="CopyWebTemplateConfig" BeforeTargets="PrepareForBuild">
    <Copy SourceFiles="Web.template.config"
          DestinationFiles="Web.config"/>
  </Target>

  <PropertyGroup>
    <PrepareForRunDependsOn>
      $(PrepareForRunDependsOn);
      UpdateWebConfigBeforeRun;
    </PrepareForRunDependsOn>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <PropertyGroup>
    <OnAfterCopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage>
      $(OnAfterCopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage);
      UpdateNLogConfigBeforePublish;
    </OnAfterCopyAllFilesToSingleFolderForPackage>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <!-- This target will run right before you run your app in Visual Studio -->
  <Target Name="UpdateWebConfigBeforeRun">
    <Message Text="Configuration: $(Configuration): Web.template.$(Configuration).config"/>
    <TransformXml Source="Web.template.config"
              Transform="Web.template.$(Configuration).config"
              Destination="Web.config" />
  </Target>

  <Target Name="UpdateNLogConfigBeforePublish">
    <Message Text="Configuration: $(Configuration): NLog.$(Configuration).config"/>
    <TransformXml Source="NLog.config"
              Transform="NLog.$(Configuration).config"
              Destination="$(IntermediateOutputPath)\Package\PackageTmp\NLog.config" />
  </Target>

  <!-- Exclude the config template files from the created package -->
  <Target Name="ExcludeCustomConfigTransformFiles" BeforeTargets="ExcludeFilesFromPackage">
    <ItemGroup>
      <ExcludeFromPackageFiles Include="Web.template.config;Web.template.*.config"/>
      <ExcludeFromPackageFiles Include="NLog.*.config"/>
    </ItemGroup>
    <Message Text="ExcludeFromPackageFiles: @(ExcludeFromPackageFiles)" Importance="high"/>
  </Target>
</Project>

The NLog.*.config files then use the standard transformations, e.g.:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform"
      internalLogFile="c:\temp\ProjectName.ENV.nlog.txt"
      xdt:Transform="SetAttributes(internalLogFile)">

    <variable name="envName" value="ENV"
              xdt:Transform="SetAttributes" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />

    <targets>
        <target name="exceptionsMail" to="ENV.email@some.email.domain"
                xdt:Transform="SetAttributes(to)" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />
    </targets>

    <rules>
        <logger name="Exceptions" minlevel="Error" writeTo="exceptionsMail"
                xdt:Transform="Insert" />
    </rules>
</nlog>

Answer 3

I've managed it without moving all configuration into web.config or app.config. (There is nothing, connected with nlog in web/app.config at all).

1) Using this article: applying msbuild config transformations to any config file I've created all transformations, which are necessary and added transformation task.

2)Then I've checked if there are any other tasks, which do similar things. In my case there was one, which had been created by SlowCheetah(VS extension to automatically add transformations). I've removed it - and everything became ok. (SlowCheetah can restore its settings on next build, so it is better to remove it or suppress its transformation task)

3) My transform files look like this one:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- For more information on using app.config transformation visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125889 -->
<nlog xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform" xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd">
  <targets>
    <target xsi:type="Database" name="DbLogging"
          connectionString=".\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=xxxxx;User ID=xxxx;Pwd=xxxx;" xdt:Transform="SetAttributes(connectionString)" xdt:Locator="Match(name)">
    </target>
  </targets>
  <rules>
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Debug" writeTo="DbLogging" />
    <logger name="Namespace.*" minlevel="Debug" writeTo="DbLogging" xdt:Transform="SetAttributes(writeTo)" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />
  </rules>
</nlog>

Answer 4

I got this working by, in transformation config, include the xmlns:xsi namespace definied in web.config for the nlog section.

<nlog xmlns:xsi="...">
    <variable name="..." value="..." xdt:Transform="Replace" xdt:Locator="Match(name)" />
</nlog>