"Copy To Output Directory" setting requires file to be added to solution

[jez9999]

In the documentation, it recommends setting Copy To Output Directory = Copy Always for each config file so that they are copied to the output directory. But doesn't this miss the whole point of using NConfig? The idea is that the config file does not necessarily exist. That way, I can provide the file on my developer system but not provide it on the live system so it falls back to Web.config. More importantly I can exclude the developer config files from source control so that developer passwords etc. are not checked in. This means I don't want to add these config files to the solution. But in order to have the Copy To Output Directory setting available, I have to add the config file to the solution. Is this not a contradiction?

[HeikoStudt]

Within NConfig you can use any path to find your real config files. Firstly, absolute paths (C:\Dev\mymaster.config) and secondly relative ones "....\config\fun.config".
However, within relative paths there is the pitfall on where your working dir starts. If you simply put "killingapp.config" it won't find that config file if it was not copied to the OUT folder. For starters this might be hard to understand initially.

If you know what you are doing, you might differ.

MFG
Heiko Studt

[jez9999]

But why does it need to be copied to the OUT folder when you debug? IIS Express just points to the project root so you can create a Config dir in there and point to the config file - it doesn't need to be in the OUT folder.

[HeikoStudt]

Please try to create a Commandline Project or Windows Service project.

MFG
Heiko Studt

[jez9999]

@HeikoStudt OK in that case the documentation should be updated to say that you only need to Copy Always for those projects, but for web projects you don't because IIS Express just looks at the root Web.Config and you can put custom config files there.