This is a continuation of B&R and CI post.Do read part1, part2 and part3.

In this Post we ll discuss common extensibility task we might need for msbuid and nant script in our CI.

Extensibility points

There are so many other tasks that can be integrated to the msbuild/NAnt build scripts. They can be used as per the requirements.

MSBuild Extensions

Setting up the iis server, physical and virtual directory path’s creation, copying code to the virtual directory

Task for setting up the iis server, creating a physical path and virtual path in the iis server and copying code to the virtual directory path.

<PropertyGroup>

<InetpubWwwrootDirectoryPhysicalPath>C:\Inetpub\wwwroot</ InetpubWwwrootDirectoryPhysicalPath>

    <VirtualDirectoryName>RiskManager.Server.Web</ VirtualDirectoryName>

</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="Restart_IIS">

    <Message Text="Restarting IIS......"/>

    <Exec Command="iisreset.exe /restart"/>

    <Message Text="Deployed..access the application "/>

</Target>

<Target Name="CreatePhysicalFolder">

<Exec Command="$(InetpubWwwrootDirectoryPhysicalPath )\$( VirtualDirectoryName)"/>

</Target>

<Target Name="CreateVirtualDirectory">

            <Message Text="Creating virtual directory ..."/>

<WebDirectoryCreate VirtualDirectoryName="$( VirtualDirectoryName)"

                VirtualDirectoryPhysicalPath="$( InetpubWwwrootDirectoryPhysicalPath)" />

<Message Text="[Build Message] :Virtual directory created successfully"/>

</Target>

<Target Name="CopyCcodeToVirtualDirectory">

<Exec Command="copy release/app/urApp.Web\*.* $(InetpubWwwrootDirectoryPhysicalPath)\$(VirtualDirectoryName)"/>

</Target>

Sandcastle task

Sandcastle task which creates the corresponding help files for a particular assembly.

 <PropertyGroup>
    <DOUBLE_QUOTES>%22</DOUBLE_QUOTES>
    <DocFolder>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)</DocFolder>
     <SandCastleHFBProject>BuildingSolution.shfb</SandCastleHFBProject>
    <SandCastleHFBPath>C:\Program Files\EWSoftware\Sandcastle  Help File Builder\</SandCastleHFBPath>
 <SandCastleHFBCmd>$(SandCastleHFBPath)SandcastleBuilderConsole.exe</SandCastleHFBCmd>
</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="ClenUpSHFBFiles">
    <CreateItem Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\doc\*.*">
      <Output TaskParameter="Include" ItemName="OldSHFBFiles"/>
    </CreateItem>
    <Delete Files="@(OldSHFBFiles)"/>
 <RemoveDir Directories="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\doc" />
</Target>

<Target Name="SandcastleHelpFileBuilder" DependsOnTargets="Compile">
     <Exec Command="$(DOUBLE_QUOTES)$(SandCastleHFBCmd)$(DOUBLE_QUOTES) $(DOUBLE_QUOTES)$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\$(SandCastleHFBProject)$(DOUBLE_QUOTES)" />
</Target>

NDepend Tasks:-
NDepend is a sort of dependency walker tool which help out to analyze the complexities of managed assemblies. This tool will help to show the dependencies between them.

<PropertyGroup>
    <DOUBLE_QUOTES>%22</DOUBLE_QUOTES>
    <NDependProjectFile>NDependProject.xml</NDependProjectFile>
    <NDependPath>C:\Program Files\NDepend\</NDependPath>
</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="ClenNDependFiles">
    <CreateItem  Include="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\NDependOut\**\*.*">
      <Output TaskParameter="Include"  ItemName="OldNDependFiles"/>
    </CreateItem>
    <Delete Files="@(OldNDependFiles)"/>
    <RemoveDir  Directories="$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\NDependOut" />
</Target>

<Target Name="NDepend">
    <Exec  Command="$(DOUBLE_QUOTES)$(NDependPath)NDepend.Console.exe$ (DOUBLE_QUOTES)  $(DOUBLE_QUOTES)$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)\$(NDependProjectFile)$(DOUBLE_QUOTES)" />
</Target>

MSBuild Task written in C# script

Writing a task which can invoke a static c# method embedded in the script file..

<PropertyGroup>

  <Code>

    <![CDATA[

                                    public static void ScriptMain() {

                                                List<string> list = new List<string>();

                                                list.Add("This target");

                                                list.Add("is written");

                                                list.Add("in C#");

                                                Console.WriteLine("C# scripting in  msbuild");

                                                foreach(string s in list)

                                                {

                                                  Console.WriteLine(s);

                                                }

                                    }

                                    ]]>

  </Code>

</PropertyGroup>

<Target Name="Script">

  <Script Language="C#" Code="$(Code)" />

</Target>

Different build scenarios
Even though the msbuild/nant tasks are useful in the process of continuous integration, in the actual practice all of these tasks may not be required in different build scenarios. For example in the case of a developer build, iis tasks and Svn Checkout will not have much importance. But for full build or nightly build it has most importance and should be one of the preliminary tasks to perform. Here lists some of such scenarios.

Developer Build
List of tasks required are
Cleanup compilation output files, Compile
Cleanup Unit testing output files, Unit Testing
Cleanup Code coverage output files, Code coverage
Cleanup Code quality output files, Code quality
Database creation and population of data(such as adding tables, views, stored procedures etc using sql)
Svn Clean up, Svn checkout, Versioning, NDepend, Sandcastle, QTP etc are not required here.

QA Build
List of tasks required are
Svn Clean up, Svn checkout, Versioning
Cleanup compilation output files, Compile
Cleanup Unit testing output files, Unit Testing
Cleanup Code coverage output files, Code coverage
Cleanup Code quality output files, Code quality
Database creation and population of data(such as adding tables, views, stored procedures etc using sql)
QTP
NDepend, Sandcastle etc are not required here.

Full build and Nightly build
List of tasks required are
Svn Clean up, Svn checkout, Versioning
Cleanup compilation output files, Compile
Cleanup Unit testing output files, Unit Testing
Cleanup Code coverage output files, Code coverage
Cleanup Code quality output files, Code quality
Database creation and population of data(such as adding tables, views, stored procedures etc using sql)
QTP
NDepend
Sandcastle
All the tasks are required here.

Different such scenarios can be achieved by providing some main targets with names reflecting the build scenario and invoking required targets from there. As an example a <FullBuild> target will look like this.

<Target Name="FullBuild">
  <CallTarget Targets="Version" />
  <CallTarget Targets="SvnCleanup" />
  <CallTarget Targets="CodeSvnGet" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Clean" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Compile" />
  <CallTarget Targets="ClenUpTestFiles" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Test" />
  <CallTarget Targets="ClenUpCoverageFiles" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Coverage" />
  <CallTarget Targets="ClenUpFxcopFiles" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Reporting" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Documentation" />
  <CallTarget Targets="ClenUpSHFBFiles" />
  <CallTarget Targets="SandcastleHelpFileBuilder" />
  <CallTarget Targets="ClenNDependFiles" />
  <CallTarget Targets="NDepend" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Create_db" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Create_tables" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Create_views" />
  <CallTarget Targets="Create_procs" />
</Target>
Similarly we can create different main targets such as <DeveloperBuild>, <QABuild>, <NightlyBuild> etc.

 Tips and Tricks
• How to use VS.NET 2005 intellisense to create/edit NAnt build scripts?
1. Copy the schema file “nant.xsd” to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Xml\Schemas". This schema file will be available under “NAnt Install path\schema\”
2. Set the name space in your build file as shown below:
  <project name="BuildingSolution" default="help" xmlns="http://nant.sf.net/release/0.85/nant.xsd">
3. Use the VS IDE to edit the build files with intellisense support

In next Post we ll discuss other frmaeworks and different links and couple of useful tools on CI processes as well as I will try to point out the comparision between VSTS ,custom CI,openSource ve PAID tools.

This post is a Continuation from earlier posts Where as I started with what CI is and What Toolset you might need .I would recommend you to read the Part1 and Part2 before  continue reading this post.

The goal for this post is to create a CI using NANT instead of Msbuild:-

In the target list only one target has been added, which is the build target. This target is responsible for calling other tasks through <call target=”” /> command. These targets are invoked in the order they are written, so the script should take care of the dependencies between the tasks while calling them sequentially. The corresponding script is listed below.

<target name="Mainbuild" description="compiles the source code">

    <call target="svn.cleanup"/>    <call target="code.svn.get"/>    <call target="clean"/>    <call target="compile"/>    <call target ="create_db"/>

    <call target ="create_tables"/>    <call target ="create_views"/>    <call target ="create_procs"/>    <call target="runUnitTests"/>

    <call target="runFxCop"/>    <call target="RunCodecoverage"/> 

</target>

Here different targets such as “svn.cleanup”, “compile” etc are getting called as per the dependency among them.

Clean up the source control(svn)

Invoking the Svn Cleanup on a particular project, which is in svn source control.

<property name = "svn.exe.physical.path" value="c:\program       files\subversion\bin\svn.exe" />

<property name = "Svn.Update.Path"     value="C:\BuildingSolution"/>

<target name="svn.cleanup">

<exec program="${svn.exe.physical.path}" commandline=' cleanup "${Svn.Update.Path}"' failonerror="false" verbose="true" />

</target>

Get latest code from the source control(svn)

Getting the latest code for a particular project using Svn Checkout.

<property name = "svn.uri"        value="Trunk URL " />

<property name = "Svn.Update.Path"     value="C:\BuildingSolution"/>

<target name="code.svn.get">

    <svn-checkout      destination="${Svn.Update.Path}" uri="${svn.uri}"  verbose="true"  username="username" password="password" />

</target>

  Versioning

Creating a task which generates the version.

<asminfo output="AssemblyInfo.cs" language="CSharp">

    <imports>

      <import namespace="System" />

      <import namespace="System.Reflection" />

     </imports>

    <attributes>

      <attribute type="ComVisibleAttribute" value="false" />

      <attribute type="CLSCompliantAttribute" value="true" />

      <attribute type="AssemblyVersionAttribute" value="1.0.0.0" />

      <attribute type="AssemblyTitleAttribute" value="My assembly" />

<attribute type="AssemblyDescriptionAttribute" value="ur description" />

<attribute type="AssemblyCopyrightAttribute" value="ur copyright info />

<attribute type="ApplicationNameAttribute" value="myAssembly" />

    </attributes>

    <references>

      <include name="System.EnterpriseServices.dll" />

    </references>

</asminfo>

Cleanup, Compilation(msbuild)

Compiling the project after cleaning up the previous compilation output files.

In the “compile” target, we are using <msbuild> task to compile the project since compilation through nant for web-based projects are not as successful as msbuild based compilation. See the script snippet below.

<property name="Build.OutputFolder"   value="c:\builds\buildingsolution\"/>

<target name="clean" description="remove all generated files">

    <delete>

      <fileset basedir="${Build.OutputFolder}Latest\">

        <includes name="*.*"/>

      </fileset>

    </delete>

</target>

<target name="compile" description="Compiles using the AutomatedDebug Configuration">

<loadtasks assembly="C:\Softwares\nant-0.85-bin\nant-0.85\bin\nant.exe" />

<!--We are using msbuild task for compiling is bcoz nant may not be successfull in building the web applications-->

<msbuild project="C:\projects\BuildingSolution\BuildingSolution.sln">

<property name="Configuration" value="Debug" verbose="true"/>

    </msbuild>

</target>

Note: - Though we can compile source code using devenv.exe, it requires Visual Studio to be installed on the machine. This is the reason why we are using MSBuild instead.

 Cleanup, Unit Testing(NUnit)

Unit testing the project after cleaning up the previous unit test log files.

<property name="Build.OutputFolder"   value="c:\builds\buildingsolution\"/>

<target name="cleanuptestfiles">

    <delete>

      <fileset basedir="${Build.OutputFolder}buildlogs\">

        <includes name="test.xml"/>

      </fileset>

    </delete>

</target>

<target name="runUnitTests" description="Runs unit tests on       specified dlls">

              <nunit2 failonerror="false" verbose="true">

<formatter outputdir="${Build.OutputFolder}\" usefile="true" type="Xml" extension=".xml"/>

               <test>

<assemblies basedir="C:\BuildingSolution\BuildingTest\bin\Debug">

                            <includes name="*Test.dll"/>

                          </assemblies>

              </test>

  </nunit2>

</target>

Cleanup, Code coverage(NCover)

Code coverage tool invocation for checking the code coverage statistics after cleaning up the previous code coverage log files.

<property name="Build.OutputFolder"   value="c:\builds\buildingsolution\"/>

<target name="cleanupcover">

    <delete>

      <fileset basedir="${Build.OutputFolder}buildlogs\">

        <includes name="coverage.xml"/>

      </fileset>

    </delete>

</target>

<target name="RunCodecoveragefiles" description="Generate code coverage using NCover">

    <exec program="C:\Program Files\NCover\NCover.Console.exe">

      <arg value="//w &quot;C:\projects\BuildingSolution&quot;" />

<arg value="//x &quot; ${Build.OutputFolder}buildlogs \coverage.xml&quot;" />

<arg value="&quot;C:\projects\BuildingSolution\BuildingUI\bin\Debug\BuildingUI.exe&quot;" />

      <arg value="BuildingTest.dll" />

    </exec>

</target>

Cleanup, Code quality(FxCop)

Code quality tool invocation for checking the quality and coding standards of the project after cleaning up the previous code quality log files.

<property name="Build.OutputFolder"   value="c:\builds\buildingsolution\"/>

<target name="cleanupfxcopfiles">

    <delete>

      <fileset basedir="${Build.OutputFolder}buildlogs\">

        <includes name="fxcop-results.xml"/>

      </fileset>

    </delete>

</target>

<target name="runFxCop">

<exec program="C:\Program Files\Microsoft FxCop 1.35\fxcopcmd.exe"

      commandline="/p:${nant.project.basedir}\${nant.project.name}.fxcop /o:${Build.OutputFolder}\fxcop-results.xml" failonerror="false"/>

</target>

·                     Database creation and population of data(such as adding tables, views, stored procedures etc using sql)

Tasks which execute .sql files to create a database connection; and adding up tables, views and stored procedures to the database.

<property name = "db.server" value="UrDBServer" />

<property name = "db.instance" value="\SQLEXPRESS" />

<property name = "db.user" value="sa" />

<property name = "db.password" value="sa" />

<property name = "db.name" value="BuildingSolutionDB" />

<target name="create_db" description="Create DB">                

              <echo message="Creating Database...."/>

              <exec program="osql.exe" commandline="-S ${db.server}${db.instance} -U ${db.user} -P ${db.password} -b -n -i Database\createDB.sql" verbose="true"/>

              <echo message="Database Created successfully...."/>

</target>

<target name="create_tables" description="Create Tables">                    

                        <echo message="Creating Tables"/>

                        <foreach item="File" property="filename">

                                    <in>

                                                <items>

<include name="Database\Tables\*.sql"></include>

                                                </items>

                                    </in>

                                    <do>

<regex pattern="^(?'path'.*(\\|/)|(/|\\))(?'file'.*)$" input="${filename}" />

<exec program="sqlcmd" verbose ="true" commandline='-S ${db.server}${db.instance} -U ${db.user} -P ${db.password} -i "${filename}"'/>

                                    </do>

                        </foreach>

</target>

<target name="create_views" description="Create Views">

    <echo message="Creating Views"/>

    <foreach item="File" property="filename">

      <in>

        <items>

          <include name="Database\Views\*.sql"></include>

        </items>

      </in>

      <do>

        <regex pattern="^(?'path'.*(\\|/)|(/|\\))(?'file'.*)$" input="${filename}" />

<exec program="sqlcmd" verbose ="true" commandline='-S ${db.server}${db.instance} -U ${db.user} -P ${db.password} -i "${filename}"'/>

      </do>

    </foreach>

</target>

<target name="create_procs" description="Create Stored Procs">

    <echo message="Creating Stored Procedures"/>

    <foreach item="File" property="filename">

      <in>

        <items>

<include name="Database\StoredProcedures\*.sql"></include>

        </items>

      </in>

      <do>

        <regex pattern="^(?'path'.*(\\|/)|(/|\\))(?'file'.*)$" input="${filename}" />

<exec program="sqlcmd" verbose ="true" commandline='-S ${db.server}${db.instance} -U ${db.user} -P ${db.password} -i "${filename}"'/>

      </do>

    </foreach>

</target>

  CCNet.Config File:-The Only Chnages here from the MSbuild approach will be ,We ll be calling Nant Task Like the following:-

<tasks>

      <nant>

        <executable>C:\Softwares\nant-0.85-bin\nant-0.85\bin\nant.exe</executable>

        <baseDirectory>C:\BuildingSolution</baseDirectory>

        <buildFile>BuildingSolution.build</buildFile>

        <targetList>

          <target>Mainbuild</target>

        </targetList>

        <buildTimeoutSeconds>1200</buildTimeoutSeconds>

      </nant>

    </tasks>

Now That we discussed both Nant as well as Msbuild based approaches,Let discuss few important extensibility points before moving out to tools like CIfactory and TeamCity.In part-4 We ll be covering Extensibilty and in Part-5 we ll be covering CI factory and TeamCity and I will rpovide important links on the Concluding Post.

Part4 Link

Part5 Link soon

Drop me a line if you found this post useful.

We will continue with the script in next post.Please watchout MSBUILD based approach in Part-2 and NAnt based approach in part-3 as well as I will also post some readymade framework and tools which were quite popular like TeamCity http://www.jetbrains.com/teamcity/  , Watin  http://watin.sourceforge.net/ ,FinalBuilder http://finalbuilder.com/and Cifactory http://cifactory.org/joomla/ in future posts.I will also discuss VSTS and the pros and cons of going the VSTS route vs the OpenSource Route in future post.

Read part2 ,part3. ,Part4