How to tell if code is running locally from Visual Studio/Cassini

Question

I have an interface, let's call it ILocateLogFile, with a standard implementation for dev/beta/production servers, and one that only works in the local development environment. I can't seem to think of a nice clean way to decide (preferably at compile time, but runtime would be fine) if I'm running locally or on a server. This is a WCF application hosted on IIS, if that matters.

The best I've come up with is to use a compiler symbol, something like:

    ILocateLogFile locateLogFile;
#if DEBUG
    locateLogFile = new DevSandboxLogFileLocator();
#else
    locateLogFile = new LogFileLocator();
#endif

The problem is, compile symbols get set by the build, which I don't control, and I want to be certain. Isn't there some automagical way to check for the presence of Visual Studio? Or at least to check for Cassini rather than IIS?

Answer 1

Two ways I have done this 1 you can check the process name

bool isRunningInIisExpress = Process.GetCurrentProcess()
                                .ProcessName.ToLower().Contains("iisexpress");

Or update your config file with a custom setting

<appSettings>
    <add key="ApplicationEnvironment" value="LOCAL_DEV" />
</appSettings>

That you update specifically for each environment and have you application query for

I'm not sure if there is a way to determine this at compile time, besides having a special build configuration that is for each environment and putting a custom PRAGMA for each of these builds. Personally I think that is not as elegant, but it could also work.