Environment Variables in web.config

Question

Working on a webapp on VS2017 using MVC framework on .NET 4.5. In my local dev environment, I use the web.config file something like this:

<appSettings>
    <add key="GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS" 
         value="C:\\Work\\Services-abcd.json" /> 
</appSettings>

But when I run the webapp I still get the error that GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS is undefined.

So my question specifically is:

Where am I going wrong? Do I need to define it somewhere else?
When I deploy this to staging/production, on my azure web service, how will I share the json file and how will the web.config file need to change for that?

I know this question answers how to get the variables in web.config, but somehow I am not able to set it there.

Edit 1: Since I was asked, here is where I am getting the error of missing environment variable-

using Google.Cloud.Translation.V2;

TranslationClient client = TranslationClient.Create();

I am unable to declare TranslationClient.

make sure that you are placing this on the right solution. If you are having multiple solutions in your project then you have to place it in your mvc web application — Venkatesh Konatham, May 17 '17 at 10:59
Environment variables and `appSettings` are not the same thing... — ta.speot.is, May 17 '17 at 11:16
Off topic: you don't need to use double slash `\\ ` for the paths in xml files — nl-x, May 17 '17 at 11:31

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 18 '17 at 01:56

Where am I going wrong? Do I need to define it somewhere else?

According to your codes and description, I found you have defined the app setting not the environment variables. Notice: app setting isn't as same as environment variables.

If you want to set environment variables in the azure web app, I suggest you could set it in your web application codes and upload the application to the app service as below:

   Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS", Server.MapPath("test/test.txt"));

When I deploy this to staging/production, on my azure web service, how will I share the json file and how will the web.config file need to change for that?

I suggest you could create a folder to store the json file in your web application, then you could use Server.MapPath to get the right path of your json file.

Since I don't have the google cloud app credentials json file, so I add a txt file in my test demo to test the code could work well.

More details about my test demo, you could refer to below codes.

 protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS", Server.MapPath("test/test.txt"));
        }

        protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
           string path =  Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS");

            Response.Write(path + "\n");

            string[] lines = System.IO.File.ReadAllLines(path);

            foreach (string line in lines)
            {

                Response.Write(line);
            }

        }

Result(111 is the txt file content):

Environment Variables in web.config

1 Answers1