Remove XML comments using Visual Studio 2010 Web Config Transformation

We are using Team Build to handle our deployments to our development server, and we have a need to remove comm开发者_开发问答ents from our web config when it's transformed. Does anyone know how to remove the <!-- --> comment lines from the web config file using a transformation?

I've found an answer. It seems this is a known bug in the XDT transformation engine in Visual Studio/Team Build. This bug was reported in March, so no idea when this will be fixed.

Here's the link

Edit: This link actually isn't related to the original question. We eventually figured it wasn't possible with the built-in web config transformations. So we ended up writing a console application to strip comments, and properly format the transformed file.

Here is my function. You can add it to a helper class:

public static string RemoveComments(
        string xmlString,
        int indention,
        bool preserveWhiteSpace)
    {
        XmlDocument xDoc = new XmlDocument();
        xDoc.PreserveWhitespace = preserveWhiteSpace;
        xDoc.LoadXml(xmlString);
        XmlNodeList list = xDoc.SelectNodes("//comment()");

        foreach (XmlNode node in list)
        {
            node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node);
        }

        string xml;
        using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter())
        {
            using (XmlTextWriter xtw = new XmlTextWriter(sw))
            {
                if (indention > 0)
                {
                    xtw.IndentChar = ' ';
                    xtw.Indentation = indention;
                    xtw.Formatting = System.Xml.Formatting.Indented;
                }

                xDoc.WriteContentTo(xtw);
                xtw.Close();
                sw.Close();
            }
            xml = sw.ToString();
        }

        return xml;
    }

If you have small sections you want to remove comments from you might be willing to use a replace transform.

base web.config file:

<system.webServer>
    <rewrite>
        <rules>
            <clear />
            <!-- See transforming configs to see values inserted for builds -->
        </rules>
    </rewrite>

web.release.config transfrom (replacing contents WITHOUT comment):

<system.webServer>
<rewrite >
  <rules xdt:Transform="Replace">
    <clear/>
    <rule name="Redirect to https" stopProcessing="true" >
      <match url="(.*)" />
      <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
      </conditions>
      <action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}{REQUEST_URI}" redirectType="Permanent" appendQueryString="false" />
    </rule>
  </rules>
</rewrite>

result in final published config:

<system.webServer>
<rewrite>
  <rules>
    <clear />
    <rule name="Redirect to https" stopProcessing="true">
      <match url="(.*)" />
      <conditions>
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
      </conditions>
      <action type="Redirect" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}{REQUEST_URI}" redirectType="Permanent" appendQueryString="false" />
    </rule>
  </rules>
</rewrite>

You could end up copying A LOT of your config from base to the transform file using this approach but it might be appropriate in small cases...

In my case I dont want rewrite rules in my base, but I put a comment in to tell other devs to look in transforms for more info, but I dont want that comment in the final version.