Use of variables in configuration files

Question

We often have a lot of cut and paste within a configuration file.

For example we use Entity Framework, where we have 10 models, each model has it's own connection string. But within the connection string the name of the server and database are the same.

At the moment if we want to change the server we must change it in 10 places.

Is there a way to declare the name of the server in one place and then use that value in all the connection strings?

Answer 1

This has been raised previously.

The general approach is to use post-build events to populate the variables in configs from a central location.