Web publishing warning: "No element in the source document matches ‘/configuration/hibernate-configuration’"

I created web.config transform that changes NHibernate configuration for Windows Azure projects. When building publishing package I get the following warning: "No element in the source document matches ‘/configuration/hibernate-configuration’" and transformed configuration doesn’t contain expected changes. In this posting I will show you how to solve this problem.

Problem

Here is NHibernate config from my original web.config file:

<hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2"> 
  <session-factory> 
    <property name="connection.provider"> 
        NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider 
    </property> 
    <property name="connection.driver_class"> 
        NHibernate.Driver.SqlClientDriver 
    </property> 
    <property name="connection.connection_string">CONNSTR</property>
    <property name="dialect"> 
        NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2005Dialect 
    </property> 
    <property name="show_sql">true</property> 
  </session-factory> 
</hibernate-configuration>

And here is the transform that should replace connection string:

<hibernate-configuration xmlns="urn:nhibernate-configuration-2.2"> 
  <session-factory> 
    <property  
        xdt:Transform="Replace"  
        xdt:Locator="Match(name)"  
        name="connection.connection_string"> 
        CONNSTR 
    </property> 
  </session-factory> 
</hibernate-configuration>

Warning is shown here:

Web.Cloud Debug.config(7,4): warning : No element in the source document matches ‘/configuration/hibernate-configuration’

Transformed Web.config using Web.Cloud Debug.config into obj\Cloud Debug\TransformWebConfig\transformed\Web.config.

Seems like transformer gets into trouble.

Solution

Solution is simple: we have to remove namespace from NHibernate configuration in web.config file like shown here:

<hibernate-configuration> 
  <session-factory> 
    <property name="connection.provider"> 
        NHibernate.Connection.DriverConnectionProvider 
    </property> 
    <property name="connection.driver_class"> 
        NHibernate.Driver.SqlClientDriver 
    </property> 
    <property name="connection.connection_string">CONNSTR</property>
    <property name="dialect"> 
        NHibernate.Dialect.MsSql2005Dialect 
    </property> 
    <property name="show_sql">true</property> 
  </session-factory> 
</hibernate-configuration>

Now the transform will be applied correctly and publishing package contains connection string given in web.config transform that is applied.