Azure DevOps Release transform/replace tokens - azure-devops

Question

I have 2 config files, ConnectionStrings.config and ConnectionStrings.Release.config. These files are used to store various connection strings we use in our app.
<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<ConnectionStrings xmlns="http://tempuri.org/ConnectionStrings.xsd">
<Service>
<Name>MyService</Name>
<Address>http://localhost/#{ConnectionString}#/MyServiceService.svc</Address>
<ClassName>MyClass, MyClass</ClassName>
</Service>
</ConnectionStrings>
When we deploy locally we use the normal ConnectionStrings.config without any replace tokens in the file. The .release.config is the one that has the tokens.
I'm using these 2 market place tasks
[Tasks in my release pipeline]
1
From what I understand, the transform task is taking the .release.config file and "renaming it" .config, then the replace tokens task replaces the necessary tokens with variables in my pipeline. Finally I copy these to my target. My source of the copy task is my Git working directory in Azure.
When I check the results, I don't see the ConnectionStrings.config changed at all and its just copied over like if it was a local deploy.
What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

It seems that you are using this extension: XDT Transform. After installing it in my organization, there are 2 external tasks: XDT tranform task and Replace Tokens task in release pipeline.
below is my repository structure, the ConnectionStrings.config and ConnectionStrings.Release.config.
And my release pipeline looks like below.
I create a pipeline variable ConnectionStrings, and set its value to hello_world, use the PowerShell script gc _215\ConnectionStrings.config to print the replaced result. Creating a new release we can see below log.
Thus it works as expected.