Best Practice for changing Connection String in multiple builds

Playing around with the VS205 IDE, some of the new tools are pretty nice.

What I can't figure out how to do, is to have multiple build configurations, debug, relese, test etc, each with its own connection string, and configure and build this through the IDE.

Requirements:
At build time, use the GUI to set the connection string for each environment, and use it for the TableAdapter.
Build a configuration, targetted at one of these environments.

Is this possible?
If not, what is the best way to do this?

I can use NAnt to specify the settings file for the particular build, however I really want to see what this IDE can do.

200+ views, no replies, is that a record?

Bad question, poorly worded, no solution?

My first new thread, you'll give me a complex!

oh I dunno; let's do some math.  Look at current techoff ratios:

Replies / Views:
1 / 234
1 / 120
12 / 1395
7 / 2040

Sandbox:
6 / 3486
3 / 1186

Coffeehouse:
46 / 15546
174 / 12248

Clearly the ratio depends on the forum.

Have you considered making your connection string a deploy-time configuration item rather than a build-time issue? Most of the systems I've worked on consider a deployment issue.

I have been having this discussion with people recently.  Some people want build time, and some want it to be changed manually depending on what it is doing.....

So out of interest, how do you do Deploy time configuration??

blowdart wrote:

Why can't the table adapter read the string from app.config?

That's pretty much what I want to do.

I wouldn't hard code in the Table Adapter.  The TA should look for a parameter in the relevant config file for that environment.

I could have multiple config files as you suggest, what I was looking for was a way to include the correct config file into the build for the particular environment.

Really just saves the last deployment step of copying/moving/renaming config files.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/practices/Topics/security/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnpag2/html/pagguidelines0002.asp

This is a patterns & practices link for security and ADO.NET

It has good ideas to look into for connection strings too.

have your current app.conifg or web.config, and then override the connection string with another config file using the file="DynamicSettings.config" or something. Then on each build that file would be the only thing different. You woudnt merge up the dynamic settings at all to your release build.

Just make your own config file, we have a database.config and each special connection has 2 nodes:
<Development>local database connection</Development>
<Live>live database connection</Live>

If the IP is the IP of the development server, use the Development string
else
use the other

If your environments are all seperate machines, utilize the machine.config file.

Then you never have to change any code when moving between environments.