Exporting Web.config AppSettings to CSV using PowerShell

Managing configurations is a critical part of ensuring that applications run correctly across different environments. In .NET applications, configurations such as appSettings are often stored in a Web.config file. At some point, you might find it essential to export these settings to a CSV file. This will enable you to analyze, share, or create backups of the configurations. In this tutorial, we’ll show how to extract appSettings from a Web.config file and save them in a CSV file using PowerShell.

Step 1: Load the Web.config File

Firstly, you will need to load the Web.config file into PowerShell. You can accomplish this using the XmlDocument class.

[xml]$webConfig = Get-Content 'C:\path\to\web.config'

Step 2: Navigate to the appSettings Section

Once the Web.config file is loaded, navigate to the appSettings section to access the key-value pairs. Utilize the SelectNodes method to get all the add elements under the appSettings section.

$appSettings = $webConfig.Configuration.appSettings.add

Step 3: Create an Array to Store Key-Value Pairs

Before iterating through the appSettings, create an array to store the key-value pairs.

$keyValuePairs = @()

Step 4: Extract Key-Value Pairs

Iterate over each added element, create a customized PowerShell object for each key-value pair, and add each object to the array.

foreach ($setting in $appSettings) {
    $obj = New-Object PSObject
    $obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Key" -Value $setting.Key
    $obj | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Value" -Value $setting.Value
    $keyValuePairs += $obj
}

Step 5: Export Key-Value Pairs to a CSV File

Finally, use the Export-Csv cmdlet to write the key-value pairs to a CSV file.

$keyValuePairs | Export-Csv -Path 'C:\path\to\output.csv' -NoTypeInformation

Using PowerShell, you can extract appSettings from a Web.config file and export them to a CSV file with just a few lines of code. This approach provides a straightforward way to manage and analyze your application configurations. The script can be further customized or wrapped into a reusable function, making it a versatile tool for configuration management in .NET applications.