Question

I have some key/value config values in a .Net app.config file

<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="keyname" value="stringval" />

which I want to add or modify as part of a script after download. What’s the easiest way to do this?

Answer 1

I found one option is to use Powershell. You can get things done with a pretty short script.

[xml] $xml = Get-Content "C:\tools\footools\foostable123\foo.exe.config"
$($xml.configuration.appSettings.add | Where-Object { $_.key -eq "TFSWorkItemUrl" }).value = "http://mytfsserveruri/"
$xml.Save("C:\temp.config")

The second line modifies the ‘value’ attribute of the xml element such as in the original question.
I do think there’s going to be plentry of other good answers, so keep them coming – not everyone will prefer Powershell as the solution.