Nagaraju Palla's WebLog

How to add custom build step messages to teambuild process

nagarajp — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 00:39:00 GMT

The following sample task illustrates how to add custom build step messages to the build process.

using System;

using Microsoft.Build.Framework;

using Microsoft.Build.Utilities;

using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client;

using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Proxy;

using System.Threading;

// This sample references Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll, Microsoft.Build.Utilities.dll,

// Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Common.dll, Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll,

// System.dll, System.Web.Services.dll

namespace TeamBuildSampleTasks

{

public class SampleTaskWithCustomBuildStep : Task

{

private string m_teamFoundationUrl;

private string m_buildNumber;

private string m_teamProject;

[Required]

public string TeamFoundationUrl

{

get { return m_teamFoundationUrl; }

set { m_teamFoundationUrl = value; }

}

[Required]

public string BuildNumber

{

get { return m_buildNumber; }

set { m_buildNumber = value; }

}

[Required]

public string TeamProject

{

get { return m_teamProject; }

set { m_teamProject = value; }

}

public override bool Execute()

{

// Create TeamBuild BuildStore web service.

TeamFoundationServer tfs = new TeamFoundationServer(m_teamFoundationUrl);

BuildStore bs = (BuildStore)(tfs.GetService(typeof(BuildStore)));

// buildUri is used later on to identify the build

string buildUri = bs.GetBuildUri(m_teamProject, m_buildNumber);

// This string is used internally in TeamBuild to identify the message.

string buildStepName = "Sleep Messages";

string buildStepMsg = "Build Step: Sleep and get random result";

// Add the build step message to the build process and this will show up in the build report

// now the status set to 'in progress'

bs.AddBuildStep(buildUri, buildStepName, buildStepMsg);

// Do task actions here. My sample does nothing but goes to a sound sleep and gets a random result :)

Thread.Sleep(10000);

bool result = GetRandomResult();

//update the build step message with pass/fail information

if(result)

bs.UpdateBuildStep(buildUri, buildStepName, DateTime.Now, BuildStepStatus.Succeeded);

else

bs.UpdateBuildStep(buildUri, buildStepName, DateTime.Now, BuildStepStatus.Failed);

// Log the result into build log file

Log.LogMessage("SampleTaskWithCustomBuildStep completed, result: " + result);

return true;

}

private bool GetRandomResult()

{

return ((1==new Random().Next() % 2) ? true : false);

}

Creating Skeleton Builds in Teambuild to Publish Test Results

nagarajp — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 02:58:00 GMT

There are several requests on how to publish test results to a TFS server without really creating a build. The build entry is a prerequisite for publishing test results, so you will need to create one and also create an associated project configuration against which the test results will be published. You can use TeamBuild web services to do this. Here is a sample:

The following sample creates a build named ‘SkeletonBuild001’ under TeamProject ‘MyTeamProject’ and Debug/X86 configuration which can be used to publish results against. Make sure that the drop location exists before publishing test results.

using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client;

using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Proxy;

using System;

// This sample references Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Common.dll and Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.dll

namespace TeamBuildSamples

{

class Program

{

static void Main(string[] args)

{

//Construct a buildstore object connecting to MyTFSServer

BuildStore bStore = (BuildStore)(new TeamFoundationServer("http://MyTFSServer:8080").GetService(typeof(BuildStore)));

//Create a build entry

BuildData bd = new BuildData();

//Fill in mandatory information for BuildData object

bd.BuildNumber = "SkeletonBuild001";

bd.BuildType = "DummyBuildType";

bd.TeamProject = "MyTeamProject";

// Make sure that this drop location exists, otherwise test publish will fail

bd.DropLocation = @"\\vse1010\drops\SkeletonBuild001";

bd.BuildMachine = "NoBuildMachine";

bd.RequestedBy = Environment.UserName;

bd.BuildStatus = "Successfully Completed";

bd.BuildQuality = "Used for Publishing Test Results";

// Add build entry to TeamBuild DB

bStore.AddBuild("MyTeamProject", bd);

string buildUri = bStore.GetBuildUri("MyTeamProject", "SkeletonBuild001");

//Create platform/flavor information against which the test results will be published

ProjectData pd = new ProjectData();

//Fill in mandatory information for ProjectData object

pd.FlavourName = "Debug";

pd.PlatformName = "x86";

pd.ProjectFile = "Dummy.sln";

//Add project data entry for this build.

bStore.AddProjectDetailsForBuild(buildUri, pd);

}

Namaste!

Connecting People

nagarajp — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:27:00 GMT

Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised by my college mate, a good friend, Jothibasu contacting me. He was going through blogs on msdn and came across my blog J and contacted me. This brought back a lot of college day memories. I’m amazed, 10 years were passed by since we left the college, but the memories are still fresh. Thanks to the awesome power internet has in connecting people!

I'm back :)

nagarajp — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 02:12:00 GMT

Oh, it is already 1½ months since I blogged. I feel time has been just flying, had a good time with kids during holidays. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.

BTW, I’ve been reading a lot of blogs of late. One of my favorites is soma’s blog. I love his writings especially the ones where he talks about leadership and dream big.

Gijo on VSTF migration tools

nagarajp — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:33:00 GMT

Gijo, test lead for VSTF migration tools has started blogging. He has got plenty of first hand experience with these tools, so check out his blog regularly to learn tips and tricks about them!!

Desktop Build – where are the commands?

nagarajp — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 03:27:00 GMT

In a team environment, developers would need to use the same build configuration that is used to release the product builds and validate their implementation on their machines. TeamBuild offers this functionality through a feature called ‘Desktop Build’ – build on a developer box. Refer Uday’s blog to learn details on this subject.

Running ‘Desktop Build’ essentially means you run msbuild on TfsBuild.proj that belongs to a build type from a developer machine. The TeamBuild scripts including TfsBuild.proj are located at $/TeamProject/TeamBuildTypes/<BuildType>.

I’m listing some useful commands below:

msbuild TfsBuild.proj

Performs incremental build and runs tests

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:Clean

Performs clean only operation; It cleans common _binaries_ folder and all intermediate obj folders

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:Compile

Performs incremental compilation

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:Test

Runs tests only

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:DesktopRebuild

Performs clean à full compile à run tests. In Beta3 bits, tests are not included with ‘DesktopRebuild’. It is a bug, fixed in post B3 bits.

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:BinariesRoot=d:\foo /t:TestResultsRoot=d:\bar

We currently do not support overriding output directory. The workaround is to override ‘BinariesRoot’ where product binaries get copied and ‘TestResultsRoot’ where test results get uploaded.

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /p:RunCodeAnalysis=false

Disable code analysis in desktop build

msbuild TfsBuild.proj /t:RunTest=false

Do not run tests in desktop build

Using Password Protected Signing Keys in TeamBuild

nagarajp — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 23:43:00 GMT

As you might already know, a managed component can be uniquely identified by assembly signing. Refer here to learn details on this subject. This can be executed in TeamBuild process as well.

Yesterday, I’ve answered a query on how to use password protected signing keys in TeamBuild. Thought it would be useful for all TeamBuild users, so here are the details:

Password protected signing keys may result in the following exception:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\Microsoft.Common.targets(1718,7): error MSB4018: The "ResolveKeySource" task failed unexpectedly.
System.InvalidOperationException: Showing a modal dialog box or form when the application is not running in UserInteractive mode is not a valid operation. Specify the ServiceNotification or DefaultDesktopOnly style to display a notification from a service application.
   at Microsoft.Build.Shared.ExceptionHandling.RethrowUnlessFileIO(Exception e)
   at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ResolveKeySource.ResolveAssemblyKey()
   at Microsoft.Build.Tasks.ResolveKeySource.Execute()
   at Microsoft.Build.BuildEngine.TaskEngine.ExecuteTask(ExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Hashtable projectItemsAvailableToTask, BuildPropertyGroup projectPropertiesAvailableToTask, Boolean& taskClassWasFound)

It is because the build tries to open a dialog to accept password information and fails since TeamBuild process runs under a service where GUI cannot be invoked.

For this to work without prompting, the key needs to be exported into a key container crypto store on the build machine under the account that performs the build. Once exported, the build will not ask for a password anymore. The crypto store will do the signing and take care to keep private key safe.

One of the quicker ways to do this:

- Logon to the build machine using the build service account

- Run msbuild on any project that uses this signing key. It will prompt for the password and will export the key.

- Now start the TeamBuild full build.

Namaste

Measuring Performance of TeamBuild Build Process

nagarajp — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 03:35:00 GMT

The enterprise builds are huge and take a significant amount of build time. MSBuild offers an option to track the performance of each task and target executed in the build process which would be quite helpful for builders to identify the performance problems and improve the build time. I’m attempting to provide some details on how this can be plugged into TeamBuild.

MSBuild loggers have an option called PerformanceSummary to log this data. The user will need to add the following command line option to the msbuild process that runs on the build machine (refer here for more details on how to pass additional options to msbuild command line in TeamBuild):

/logger:FileLogger,Microsoft.Build.Engine;logfile=buildperf.log;encoding=Unicode;performancesummary

This creates the build log file that contains performance data buildperf.log at <builddir>\<teamproject>\<buildtype>\buildtype on the build machine. Currently, I could not find a way to upload this to drop location, because it needs to be uploaded after msbuild process exits and we currently don’t have a way to do this. BTW, this option is enabled in 'diagnostic' mode. So, user can pass '/v:diag' to msbuild command line and get this data in BuildLog.txt itself. It will have lots of other noise though.

Here is a snapshot of the performance data that msbuild process would log:

Project Performance Summary:

1302 ms d:\builddir\TestProject\Take1\Sources\WindowsApplication1\WindowsApplication1\WindowsApplication1.csproj 1 calls

1593 ms d:\builddir\TestProject\Take1\Sources\WindowsApplication2\WindowsApplication2.sln 1 calls

18549 ms d:\builddir\TestProject\Take1\BuildType\TFSBuild.proj 1 calls

Target Performance Summary:

* ms Build 1 calls

* ms CoreCompile 1 calls

0 ms Clean 1 calls

0 ms BeforeResGen 1 calls

0 ms PostBuild 1 calls

0 ms BuildNumberOverrideTarget 1 calls

0 ms BeforeClean 1 calls

0 ms _CheckForInvalidConfigurationAndPlatform 1 calls

0 ms BeforeDropBuild 1 calls

0 ms GetCopyToOutputDirectoryItems 1 calls

0 ms PackageBinaries 1 calls

0 ms _CleanGetCurrentAndPriorFileWrites 1 calls

0 ms GetTargetPath 1 calls

0 ms PreBuild 1 calls

0 ms _CopyFilesMarkedCopyLocal 1 calls

0 ms _CheckForCompileOutputs 1 calls

0 ms AssignTargetPaths 1 calls

0 ms Compile 2 calls

0 ms BeforeBuild 1 calls

0 ms _CopySourceItemsToOutputDirectory 1 calls

0 ms AfterBuild 1 calls

0 ms AfterResGen 1 calls

0 ms AfterResolveReferences 1 calls

0 ms Test 1 calls

0 ms AfterCompile 2 calls

0 ms CoreBuild 1 calls

0 ms GetRedistLists 1 calls

0 ms PrepareResources 1 calls

0 ms AfterEndToEndIteration 1 calls

0 ms AfterLabel 1 calls

0 ms ResolveReferences 1 calls

0 ms BeforeEndToEndIteration 1 calls

0 ms ValidateSolutionConfiguration 1 calls

0 ms BuildOnlySettings 1 calls

0 ms DropBuild 1 calls

0 ms ResGen 1 calls

0 ms PrepareResourceNames 1 calls

0 ms SplitResourcesByCulture 1 calls

0 ms BeforeResolveReferences 1 calls

0 ms AfterGet 1 calls

0 ms TeamBuild 1 calls

0 ms PrepareRdlFiles 1 calls

0 ms CompileRdlFiles 1 calls

0 ms AfterTest 1 calls

0 ms BeforeGet 1 calls

0 ms AfterDropBuild 1 calls

0 ms BeforeLabel 1 calls

0 ms EndToEndIteration 1 calls

0 ms PrepareForRun 1 calls

0 ms AfterClean 1 calls

0 ms GetFrameworkPaths 1 calls

10 ms CopyFilesToOutputDirectory 1 calls

10 ms PrepareForBuild 1 calls

10 ms CopyLogFiles 1 calls

10 ms CreateManifestResourceNames 1 calls

10 ms IncrementalClean 1 calls

20 ms InitializeBuild 1 calls

40 ms CoreClean 1 calls

50 ms CoreResGen 1 calls

50 ms CoreDropBuild 1 calls

150 ms ResolveAssemblyReferences 1 calls

150 ms BeforeTest 1 calls

170 ms InitializeEndToEndIteration 1 calls

180 ms BeforeCompile 2 calls

220 ms CheckSettingsForEndToEndIteration 1 calls

1332 ms WindowsApplication2 1 calls

1462 ms CoreLabel 1 calls

2354 ms InitializeWorkspace 1 calls

3976 ms CoreGet 1 calls

5318 ms GetChangeSetsAndUpdateWorkItems 1 calls

(* = timing was not recorded because of reentrancy)

Task Performance Summary:

* ms MSBuild 1 calls

0 ms RemoveDuplicates 2 calls

0 ms CreateCSharpManifestResourceName 1 calls

0 ms GetFrameworkSDKPath 1 calls

0 ms FindUnderPath 5 calls

0 ms ReadLinesFromFile 1 calls

0 ms AssignTargetPath 5 calls

0 ms AssignCulture 1 calls

0 ms CreateProperty 12 calls

0 ms GetFrameworkPath 1 calls

10 ms MakeDir 5 calls

10 ms Delete 1 calls

10 ms TeamBuildMessage 3 calls

10 ms CreateItem 17 calls

20 ms RemoveDir 1 calls

20 ms WriteLinesToFile 2 calls

30 ms Message 11 calls

50 ms GenerateResource 1 calls

60 ms Copy 8 calls

140 ms ResolveAssemblyReference 1 calls

170 ms UpdateBuildNumberDropLocation 1 calls

250 ms DeleteWorkspaceTask 1 calls

671 ms Csc 1 calls

1342 ms CallTarget 1 calls

1462 ms Label 1 calls

2103 ms CreateWorkspaceTask 1 calls

3706 ms Get 1 calls

5318 ms GenCheckinNotesUpdateWorkItems 1 calls

(* = timing was not recorded because of reentrancy)

The first section gives details about the time taken to complete each project. The 2^nd section gives details at an indiviudal target level and the the final secion explains about average time taken by each task.

In the above example, the end-to-end build took 18.549 secs to complete from which Get action took 3.976 secs, creating workspace took 2.354 secs, gathering changesets took 5.318 secs and the actual compilation took 1.332 secs.

Namaste!

Mission statements and vision statements. What are they?

nagarajp — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 02:16:00 GMT

I always have this slight confusion around where to draw the line between mission and vision statements. So, I looked at wikipedia for the exact difference between these two and quite astonished to know how different they are. Excerpt from this article:

Organizations sometimes summarize goals and objectives into a mission statement and / or a vision statement:

A Definition of Vision in a dictionary: 'An Image of the future we seek to create'.
A vision statement describes in graphic terms where the goal-setters want to see themselves in the future. It may describe how they see events unfolding over 10 or 20 years if everything goes exactly as hoped.
A definition of Mission in a dictionary: purpose, reason for being.

Many people mistake vision statement for mission statement. Both are fundamentally different. Mission statement defines the purpose or broader goal for being in the existence or in the business. It serves as a guide in times of uncertainty, vagueness. It is like guiding light. It has no time frame. The mission can remain same for decades if crafted correctly. While vision is more specific in terms of objective and time frame of its achievement. Vision is related to some form of achievement if successful.
For example, "We help transport goods and people efficiently and cost effectively without damaging environment" is a mission statement. Ford's brief but powerful slogan, "Quality is Job 1" could count as a mission statement. While "We will be one among top three transporters of goods and people in North America by 2010" is a vision statement. You can vividly see an image of the organization in year 2010 as one among top 3. It is very concrete and unambiguous goal

Repositories for TeamBuild and migration tools

nagarajp — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 01:31:00 GMT

As all of you know, the best way to gauge the quality of software is to assess through the real customer scenarios, i.e., how the customer out there would consume this product.

We are doing this testing for TeamBuild and migration tools (Clear Quest and Visual Source Safe) right now. We are looking for real world source code repositories and bug repositories. If you are willing to provide these for testing purposes, please contact me at “nagarajp at microsoft dot com”.

Namaste!

TeamBuild Resources

nagarajp — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 01:50:00 GMT

Rob Caron posted a nice collection of resources on TeamBuild.

Some additional teambuild blogs are:

http://blogs.msdn.com/abhinaba

http://blogs.msdn.com/gautam

http://blogs.msdn.com/khushboo

Do you know: editing VS project files made easy

nagarajp — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 01:37:00 GMT

In VS 2005, you can edit project files (.csproj, .vbproj etc) in VS itself while they are loaded.

Right click on the project node in Solution Explorer and ‘Unload Project’.
Now right click on the project node again and select ‘Edit <project file>’.
This opens the project file using XML editor. Make the changes you want.
Reload the project by selecting ‘Reload project’ by right clicking the project node again.

Passing options to msbuild command line in TeamBuild process

nagarajp — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 01:26:00 GMT

TeamBuild Type Creation Wizard creates a file called ‘Tfsbuild.rsp’ with every build type. Using this, user can pass additional options to msbuild command line that gets executed on the build machine. It is quite useful, when user wants to override properties globally or pass additional custom loggers.

You would add the following 3 lines to TfsBuild.proj to define MyProperty, exclude couple of code analysis rules and pass MyLogger as a custom logger.

/p:MyProperty=MyValue

/p:CodeAnalysisRules=-Microsoft.Design#CA1012;-Microsoft.Design#CA2210;

/logger:XMLLogger,C:\Loggers\MyLogger.dll

Properties and targets defined in TeamBuild process (Microsoft.TeamFoundationBuild.targets only)

nagarajp — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 04:39:00 GMT

We have comprehensive inline documentation for the properties defined in TfsBuild.proj file. These are very commonly used properties. There are several additional properties and overridable targets defined in TeamBuild targets file (Microsoft.TeamFoundationBuild.targets) that can be helpful while customize the build process. Here is the complete laundry list of these properties and targets.

I’ve not included here the targets defined for teambuild internal build process which should not be overridden.

Properties the can be overridden

SkipClean	set this property to skip clean action
SkipGet	set this property to skip get action
SkipLabel	set this property to skip labeling action
SkipInitializeWorkspace	set this property to skip workspace creation action
SkipPostBuild	set this property to skip gathering associated changesets and workitems
SkipDropBuild	set this property to skip drop build action.
SkipWorkItemCreation	set this property to skip workitem creation on build failure
AdditionalVCOverrides	additional VC property sheets passed to the VC++ solutions in the build process
SolutionRoot	points to the root of the sources folder on build machine

Other Properties

WorkspaceName	identifies the name of the workspace created for this build
IsDesktopBuild	identifies if the build process is a desktop build
BinariesRoot	points to the binaries folder on build machine
TestResultsRoot	points to test results folder on build machine
BuildType	identifies the name of the build type
BuildNumber	identifies the name of the build, i.e., the build number
TeamFoundationServerUrl	identifies the URL of the team foundation server

Overridabe Targets

BeforeEndToEndIteration	called immediately after the full stack build is started on the build machine
AfterEndToEndIteration	called at the end of full stack build
BuildNumberOverrideTarget	target to override to customize the build number
BeforeClean	called before clean is attempted
AfterClean	called after clean is completed
BeforeGet	called before sources are get
AfterGet	called after sources are fetched
BeforeLabel	called before sources are labeled
AfterLabel	called after labeling is completed
BeforeCompile	called before compilation is started
AfterCompile	called after compilation is completed
BeforeTest	called before testing is attempted
AfterTest	called after testing is completed
BeforeDropBuild	called before dropping the built binaries, build log files and test results to release server
AfterDropBuild	called after dropping the built binaries, build log files and test results to release server
BeforeOnBuildBreak	called before creating workitem on the build break
AfterOnBuildBreak	called after workitem is created on the build break

Namaste

Features enabled by installing VSTS or VSTT on TeamBuild machine

nagarajp — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 22:38:00 GMT

Users will need to install Visual Studio Team Test edition (VSTT) or Visual Studio Team System edition (VSTS) along with TeamBuild to enjoy the complete feature set offered by TeamBuild.

Here are some important features enabled by installing VSTT or VSTS:

Team System Tests integration: tests included in TeamBuild scripts will run.
Complete support of C++ projects: TeamBuild compiles only ‘ISO C++ applications’ and ‘Managed C++ apps (safe and pure mode). Installing VSTS or VSTT will bring the complete support for C++ compilation.
Compiling VS setup projects: msbuild does not have native support for building VS setup projects. Users will need to choose ‘devenv’ command line to compile these projects.
Code Analysis Integration: Code Analysis (a.k.a FXCop) rules included in TeamBuild scripts will run.

The licensing issues are answered here.

Namaste!