End to end build automation using Team Build

1
End to end build automation using Team Build

• William Bartholomew
• Developer Productivity Specialist, TechnologyOne
• william_bartholomew_at_technologyonecorp.com

2
Who Am I?

• Developer Productivity Specialist TechnologyOne,
  Brisbane
• Technical Reviewer of Code Complete 2nd Edition
  by Steve McConnell
• Technical Reviewer of .NET Standard Library
  Annotated Reference Volume 2 by Brad and Tamara
  Abrams
• Member of Microsoft UI Frameworks Advisory
  Council (ASP .NET and Smart Client)
• Member of Microsoft Visual Studio Orcas TAP
• MSDN Forum Moderator
• Standards Australia Systems and Software
  Engineering Committee Member

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Agenda

• Introduction to MSBuild
• MSBuilds Limitations
• Introduction to Team Build
• Creating a Build Type
• Executing a Build
• Default Process
• Editing Build Types
• Build Process Customisation
• Writing Custom Tasks
• Resources

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Introduction to MSBuild

• Microsoft supported build engine
• XML-based configuration file
• IntelliSense available from Visual Studio using
  supplied schema
• Ships with .NET Framework 2.0, it is NOT part of
  Team Foundation Server
• Both Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server
  leverage MSBuild
• Command-line utility - MSBuild.exe
• API to read, manipulate and execute MSBuild
  projects

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MSBuilds Limitations

• There arent any mature GUIs.
• There arent any debuggers.
• You can still debug custom tasks using
  System.Diagnostics.Debugger.Break.
• Limited number of built in tasks compared to
  NAnt and some commercial build tools.
• Growing collection of open-source tasks.
• Easy to write your own tasks.

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Examine a .vbproj File

• Demo
• How does this work?
• Extends Microsoft.VisualBasic.targets
• Which extends Microsoft.Common.targets

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MSBuild Concepts
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MSBuild Concepts

• Projects
• The root concept in MSBuild
• Defines the build process
• Properties
• Name/value pairs
• Items
• Set of objects (commonly files)
• Can specify meta-data to be applied to the objects

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MSBuild Concepts

• Targets
• Defines a number of sequential tasks
• Projects can have initial and/or default targets
• Tasks
• Performs an operation
• Uses properties and items
• Extensible

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Introduction to Team Build

• What is Team Build?
• Service
• Queuing/Scheduling/Continuous Integration
• Process (Project/Properties/Items/Targets)
• Reports
• Post Orcas
• Build Notification Applet
• http//blogs.msdn.com/jimlamb/archive/2007/05/15/b
  uild-notification-applet.aspx

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Service
http//geekswithblogs.net/etiennetremblay/archive/
2006/10/04/93213.aspx
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Process

• What does Team Build do out-of-the-box?
• Clean the build area
• Retrieve latest version of source code
• Label source code
• Compile one or more solutions
• Run code analysis and tests
• Update work items
• Deploy binaries to a drop folder
• Provide centralised logging and reporting

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Process

• Extends Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.targets
• Supports customisation
• Configuration files
• Customisable properties
• Customisable targets
• Supports extensibility
• Custom tasks
• Team Foundation API
• Build eventing

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Creating a Build Type

• Demo
• Creates three files in Source Control
• TfsBuild.proj
• TfsBuild.rsp
• WorkspaceMapping.xml
• Best Practices
• Avoid spaces in the name
• Choose a long-term name

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Executing a Build

• Demo
• Scheduled
• Continuous Integration
• From within Visual Studio
• From the Command-Line (TfsBuild.exe)
• Also allows you to stop a build and delete builds
• From the web service

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Default Build Process

• Generate build number
• Clean
• Get
• Label
• Compile
• Create work items
• Test
• Drop

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Desktop Build Process

• Compile
• Test
• No status report
• Not part of build history
• Launched from the command-line
• MSBuild TfsBuild.proj /pSolutionRoot..\..

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Editing Build Types

• Directly edit the files in Source Control
• Team Build will automatically get the latest
  version for each build
• Because these are stored in Source Control we can
  reproduce any previous build, but make sure you
  keep your build dependencies in Source Control

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Editing Build Types

• Demo
• Attrice Team Build Sidekick

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Build Process Customisation

• Each step in the build process provides
  customisation points
• BeforeEndToEndIteration, AfterEndToEndIteration
• BuildNumberOverrideTarget
• BeforeClean, AfterClean
• BeforeGet, AfterGet
• BeforeLabel, AfterLabel
• BeforeCompile, AfterCompile

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Build Process Customisation

• Customisation points continued
• BeforeTest, AfterTest
• BeforeDropBuild, AfterDropBuild
• BeforeOnBuildBroke, AfterOnBuildBroke
• You can override the other targets, but beware!

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Build Process Customisation

• Demo
• Override build number
• Get
• SkipGet
• ForceGet
• RecursiveGet
• Partial get using WorkspaceMapping.xml

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Build Process Customisation

• Skip process step variables
• SkipClean
• SkipGet
• SkipLabel
• SkipInitializeWorkspace
• SkipPostBuild
• SkipDropBuild
• SkipWorkItemCreation

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Build Process Customisation

• Location variables
• WorkspaceName
• SolutionRoot
• BinariesRoot
• TestResultsRoot

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Build Process Customisation

• Demo
• Work Item Creation
• Change Assigned To

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Writing Custom Tasks

• Either implement Microsoft.Build.Framework.ITask
• Or, inherit Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Task
• Provide Team System awareness by passing
  (TeamFoundationServerUrl) and (BuildURI) as
  properties
• Avoid requiring Team System when not necessary

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Writing Custom Tasks

• XML attributes are passed through as properties
• Properties can be marked ltRequired()gt
• Properties can be marked ltOutput()gt
• Most intrinsic types are supported
• Arrays of these types are also supported,
  delimited using in XML
• Use ltUsingTaskgt to reference your custom task

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Writing Custom Tasks

• Demo

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Resources

• MSDN Forums
• http//forums.microsoft.com/forums/default.aspx?Fo
  rumGroupID5
• OzTFS Mailing List
• http//www.oztfs.com/
• SDC Tasks
• http//www.codeplex.com/sdctasks/
• MSBuild Tasks
• http//msbuildtasks.tigris.org/

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Resources

• Attrice Team Build Sidekickhttp//www.attrice.inf
  o/cm/tfs/TeamBuildAddin.htm
• Team System Widgets http//accentient.com/widgets
  .aspx
• Book Build Master