Sunday, May 23, 2010

throw new System.DumbDevException(“Vishal”);

Funny enough but I am here to confess that I did not realize that I had set “Comments Auto-Approve” to off on my blog since I don’t know when…  And as I use Windows Live Writer to write my blogs I never care to go to the blog dashboard for nearly anything…

Anyways, for whatever reason I thought I will go and check if I was missing out on some new features of blogger so I logged in and realized that I had several hundreds of comments piling up waiting for moderation…

So first of all sorry for the dumbness and secondly I ask you to be patient while I weed through all the comments that are accumulated so far…

I am hoping that over this next week or two I will be able to get through them all but if you need anything urgently then do not hesitate to drop me a line at Vishal.Joshi@Microsoft.com

Thanks - Vishal

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Applying XDT magic to App.Config

For several weeks now people have been asking to be able to use the XML Document Transform (XDT) with App.Config files similar to what is available with Web.Config files in VS 2010…
In all honesty there is no official/supported  implementation of XDT for any other project type than Web Application Projects but the good news is that the basis of Web.Config Transformation resides in Web Publishing Pipeline (WPP) which are set of extensible tasks and targets hooked up to provide a great deployment story for Web Applications…
Today, Ming (our senior dev on Visual Studio) and I decided to get together to give some love to App.Config file too… The below implementation is a crude way of getting XDT working into other project types within VS 2010… In a way, I would say it is a big solution for a smaller problem but the idea here is to get people unblocked and show the kind of things that WPP is capable of doing… 
If by now everything is sounding foreign then please check out the articles:

  • Web.Config Transformation
  • VS 2010 Snippets for Web.Config Transformations
  • Web.Config Transforms (XDTs) for any XML files in your web projects
    Goals
    • Being able to use XDT syntax for App.Config files similar to what you can use with Web.Debug.Config and Web.Release.Config…
    • Being able to use this in an automated fashion in build environments like Team Build…
    • Reduce the concept count and make it as simple as possible (without digging deep into optimization & performance)…
  • Please take a look at Visual Studio extension which allows you to do this without the manual workarounds below:
  •  http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/69023d00-a4f9-4a34-a6cd-7e854ba318b5

    Step by Step Instructions

    The example I am using below should be hopefully super simple that you can follow along without any prep work… All you need is VS 2010 which has “Visual Web Developer” components installed…

    Step 1 Create a new Windows Forms Application in VS 2010

    Step 2 Add App.Config file to the project…

    Add simple test settings to App.Config file as shown below:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
    <configuration>
      <appSettings>
        <add key="author" value="Vishal Joshi"/>    
      </appSettings>
    </configuration>




    Step 3 Add App.Debug.Config file to the project, I would recommend using the same App.Config file adding mechanism as shown below




    app.debug.config



    Step 4 Modify the content of App.Debug.Config as shown below:



    <?xml version="1.0"?>
    
    <!-- For more information on using App.config transformation visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125889 -->
    
    <configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
      <appSettings>
        <add key="article" value="XDT Magic for App.Config Files" xdt:Transform="Insert"/>
      </appSettings>
    </configuration>





    The key things to note above are:





    • There is a XDT namespace declaration which allows XDT engine to recognize the Transform/Locator syntax in the file


    • There is a new node being inserted into the config file using the syntax xdt:Transform=”Insert”




    Step 5 Save the edited files and unload the project frin VS 2010 Solution Explorer using the right click command as shown below:



    unload project




    Step 6 Edit the .csproj/.vbproj file to make App.Debug.Config file to be dependent on App.Config file as shown in the syntax below:




        <Content Include="App.config" />
        <Content Include="App.Debug.Config" >
          <DependentUpon>App.Config</DependentUpon>
        </Content>





    The key things to note above are:





    • By default the build action of App.Config and App.Debug.Config file will be “ None”… It needs to be changed to “Content”… This is a tiny pre-requisite for WPP but if you encounter any issues because of this then we can dig the work around…


    • DependentUpon node will make your App.Debug.Config appear as a node under your App.Config file similar to the way Web.Debug.Config and Web.Release.Config files appear under Web.Config file…


    • In VB Projects nested files are hidden so you might need to unhide these by clicking the icon on the solution explorer…




    Step 7 Change the ProjectConfigFileName property within your .csproj/.vbproj file



    WPP has an inbuilt property called ProjectConfigFileName which is by default set to Web.Config, we need to change this to app.Config which will allow projects like WinForm project not expect web.config files to transform… You can add this property right under ProjectGuid property as shown below:



      <PropertyGroup>
        <Configuration Condition=" '$(Configuration)' == '' ">Debug</Configuration>
        <Platform Condition=" '$(Platform)' == '' ">x86</Platform>
        <ProductVersion>8.0.30703</ProductVersion>
        <SchemaVersion>2.0</SchemaVersion>
        <ProjectGuid>{2D587604-866B-4675-8587-FA9728EC59D8}</ProjectGuid>
        <ProjectConfigFileName>App.Config</ProjectConfigFileName>




    Step 8 Hook up WPP within your WinForms project by importing the WPP targets.



    You can search for “Import” node in your project file and then simply copy below one line for WPP targets import



      <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets" />





    Step 9 Add a target to copy the transformed App.Config file to your output (BIN) directory




    You can simply copy paste the below code just before your </project> node closes in the .csproj/.vbproj file



      <Target Name="PostTransformAppConfig" AfterTargets="TransformWebConfig">
        <Copy Condition="Exists('$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config')" 
              SourceFiles="$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config" 
              DestinationFiles="$(OutputPath)\WinFormConfigTransform.exe.config" />
        <Copy Condition="Exists('$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config')" 
              SourceFiles="$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config" 
              DestinationFiles="$(OutputPath)\WinFormConfigTransform.vshost.exe.config" />
      </Target>





    The key things to note above are:





    • We hooked up the new PostTransformAppConfig target after TransformWebConfig target… The TransformWebConfig target is the native target in WPP which does any XML transform and will do the actual job of transforming App.Config as well..


    • The location at which the new App.Config file is getting copied is pretty self explanatory but do note that you do want to change “WinFormConfigTransform” to be the name of your own Project…  I just used a project called “WinFormConfigTransform” and hence the DestinationFiles path is named as such…




    Step 10 Run /T:TransformWebConfig task on your Project from MSBuild



    You need to use Visual Studio 2010 Command prompt and type in the below command



    msbuild C:\Vishal\WinFormConfigTransform.csproj /t:TransformWebConfig



    After running the above command if you now check the BIN folder of your project you should see that the Project.exe.Config file is now modified as shown below:



    image 



    NOTE: If you want the App.Config file to be Transformed after every build in your Visual Studio IDE (this will take some perf away but may not even be noticeable) then you can change Step 9 code to be as below:



    <Target Name="PostTransformAppConfig" AfterTargets="Build">
        <CallTarget Targets="TransformWebConfig"/>
        <Copy Condition="Exists('$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config')" 
              SourceFiles="$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config" 
              DestinationFiles="$(OutputPath)\WinFormConfigTransform.exe.config" />
        <Copy Condition="Exists('$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config')" 
              SourceFiles="$(TransformWebConfigIntermediateLocation)\transformed\App.config" 
              DestinationFiles="$(OutputPath)\WinFormConfigTransform.vshost.exe.config" />
      </Target>



    The only key difference above is that I made the new target to be called after “Build” and in the new target I made a call to “TransformWebConfig” target to ensure the transform happens before we try to copy the transformed app.config file to their final location…




    With the above change now when you build in IDE then the new transformed App.Config will be copied to your output directory…



    With the above 10 steps you should now be able to Transform your App.config just like the way you do Web.Config files in VS 2010



    -Vishal



    PS:  Whenever you make changes to your project file (like above) you make your project susceptible to data loss during upgrade to future versions of VS as next versions of VS will not know all the fancy code you put in the files, but such risks are part of the game to get all the fancy toys working :-)

    Sunday, May 02, 2010

    Xml Document Transforms (XDT) for any XML file in your project

    There have been several requests floating around to be able to use XDTs (the technology behind Web.Debug.Config/Web.Release.Config) with other XML files within the project…  To make that feasible I wrote a XmlDocumentTransform.targets  file which can generically transform any XML file using the standard Web.Config Transformation syntax introduced with VS 2010…

    Learn more about XDT & Web.Config Transformation here…

    Now to get started first download XmlDocumentTransform.targets file from my Skydive…

    Follow the below simple steps to get transformation working for any well formed XML file in your project…

    • Step 1: Save the downloaded XmlDocumentTransform.targets to %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\XmlDocumentTransform.targets

    image

    NOTE: I would highly encourage you to make a copy of the Microsoft.WebApplication.targets file as backup before you do Step 2 below, as if this file is modified incorrectly then your VS 2010 instances might start showing funny problems which will be virtually impossible to debug and the only option left with you will be to repair/uninstall-install VS 2010… (i.e. proceed at your own risk :-))

    •  Step 2: Put following line of code in Microsoft.WebApplication.targets file just before closing of the Project node i.e. before </Project>...  
      <Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\XmlDocumentTransform.targets" Condition="Exists('$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\XmlDocumentTransform.targets')" />
      The Microsoft.WebApplication.targets file is located at %ProgramFiles%\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\WebApplications... 

    image  
    NOTE: Changing the above targets file will allow you to use this functionality with all the Web Application Projects (WAPs), if you just want to change this for the current project then you can put the same Import node in .csproj or .vbproj as well...  If you use per project model then you can also check in this file into source code control and have your team use it seamlessly…

    • Step 3: Open your .csproj/vbproj file and insert the below property in <PropertyGroup> section  <AllXmlsToTransform>Settings.xml;app.config</AllXmlsToTransform>

    image

     NOTE: The Settings.xml or app.config can be replaced with the name of Xml files you want to transform…

    • Step 4: Insert <OnAfterTransformWebConfig>TransformXml;</OnAfterTransformWebConfig> similar to #3 above but do not modify the TransformXml; text here…  This is the actual hook which ties in your project to this generic XDT system...  After making the Step 3 & Step 4 changes your project file should have below content…

    image

    • Step 5: Create Setting.Debug.Xml or similar files and put XDT syntax in them... You need to make sure in the .csproj/.vbproj file of yours you have the DependentUpon property is set like the example below:
          <Content Include="Configuration\Settings.xml" />
          <Content Include="Configuration\Settings.Debug.xml">
            <DependentUpon>Configuration\Settings.xml</DependentUpon>
          </Content>
          <Content Include="Configuration\Settings.Release.xml">
            <DependentUpon>Configuration\Settings.xml</DependentUpon>
          </Content>

    image

    NOTE: The above will allow your solution to look pretty, i.e. just like web.debug.config and web.release.config files show nested under web.config, your *.$(configuration).* files will show nested under your parent file too…

    With the above 5 steps you are all set to use XDT with any of the deployment models covered in the Overview of Web Deployment Post…  In a way above steps harness the power of Web Publishing Pipeline (WPP) extensibility model and you can do several other extensions like above if you are familiar with MsBuild sytax…

    SAMPLE:   The remainder of the post is just showing you the steps to test whether the changes you made worked or not (i.e. the remaining half of the post is just playing with what you already accomplished in the first half)… :-)

    • To test the above target file I created the below MVC 2.0 project structure:

    image

    • Once you put DependentUpon node in your project file you will have to click the  “Show All Files” icon on the solution explorer for VB Projects to see Settings.Debug.Xml
    • My Settings.xml file looked as below:

    image

    • My Settings.Debug.xml file looked as below:

    image

    • To test out I tried simple “file system” publish (Right click on project and say Publish)… The new WAP Publish dialog for me looked as below:

    image

    • After publishing my C:\TestPublish folder looked as below:

    image

    • Note that Settings.Debug.xml was removed from my final publish location as it is not required for my web to function and the content of Settings.xml file were transformed and looked as below:

    image

    TeamBuild/Commandline Approach: You can also use your new transformations from TeamBuild/MsBuild by using the below command (from VS 2010 Command prompt if you are trying locally):

    MsBuild MyXDTTestProject.csproj /t:TransformXml

    The output of the command line transform should look as below:

    image

    As specified above your transformed XML will be stored in obj\$(configuration)\Settings.xml… 

    As such feel free to open the XmlDocumentTransform.targets file which you download, I have tried to put as much comments as I could to make it readable…  If you go through it I am sure you will be able to do many other cool things out of it…

    -Vishal