Compare files in a folder from a previous release - azure-devops

Question

We have a task/job during our release pipeline that we would like to skip in the event that files haven't changed in a particular folder in our repo. I am able to get a powershell script task to change a variable to skip the following task properly, but I don't know how I can do the actual comparison to determine whether to skip or not.
How can I compare changes via git or some other way to see if files have changed in a particular folder since the last release? Is it possible to compare the current artifact to the last deployed artifact in some way?

Answer 1

Is it possible to compare the current artifact to the last deployed artifact in some way?
Yes. We can add a PowerShell task and run Rest APIs to compare the artifacts and get the changes files.
Here is an PowerShell example:
$token = "$(PAT)"
$url=" https://vsrm.dev.azure.com/OrgName/ProjectName/_apis/release/deployments?definitionId=releasedefinitionid&deploymentStatus=succeeded&definitionEnvironmentId=releasedefinitionenvironmentid&api-version=6.0"
$token = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetBytes(":$($token)"))
$response = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $url -Headers #{Authorization = "Basic $token"} -Method Get -ContentType application/json
echo $response.value[0].release.id
$lastreleaseid = $response.value[0].release.id
$url1 ="https://vsrm.dev.azure.com/OrgName/ProjectName/_apis/Release/releases/$(RELEASE.RELEASEID)/changes?baseReleaseId=$($lastreleaseid)&%24top=2500&artifactAlias=Artifacts Alias name&api-version=7.1-preview.1"
$response1 = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $url1 -Headers #{Authorization = "Basic $token"} -Method Get -ContentType application/json
$count = 0
Foreach ($commitid in $response1.value.id)
{
echo $commitid
$url2 = "https://dev.azure.com/OrgName/_apis/git/repositories/RepoId/commits/$($commitid)/changes?api-version=7.0"
$response2 = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $url2 -Headers #{Authorization = "Basic $token"} -Method Get -ContentType application/json
Foreach ($changefile in $response2.changes)
{
$filepath= $changefile.item.path
if($filepath -like '/test*')
{
$count = $count + 1
}
}
}
echo $count
if($count -gt 0 )
{
echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=one]secondValue"
}
Explanation:
Step1: We can use the Rest API:Deployments - List to get the last successful Release of the Release environmen.
Step2: We can use the following Rest API to get the commits between two release.
Get https://vsrm.dev.azure.com/OrgName/ProjectName/_apis/Release/releases/currentreleaseid/changes?baseReleaseId=comparereleaseid&%24top=2500&artifactAlias=Artifacts Alias name&api-version=7.1-preview.1
Step3: We can get the changed files of the commits via the Rest API: Commits - Get Changes
Finally, we can set the Pipeline variable based on the result of the API response.
Result: