I have a situation where i need to maintain version information of my builds. By googling i found limited information. one way is to create a version file on source control and keep updating. other is to use the source control revision number. final one is to use bamboo build number. i haven't implemented anyone of this before. colud anyone point out the pros and cons of each method.
Thank you,
Reddy.
Please atleast tell me which method have u used to implement the same.
Thnq..
Visit http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/BAMBOO011/1.2.1+Using+Custom+Variables for more information about bamboo variables.
Remember to define a system property in your job configuration like this:
-DbambooBuildNumber=${bamboo.buildNumber} then you can use this property bambooBuildNumber in your maven or ant configuration file.
Good question. I've done this in kind of an ad-hoc manner before. I don't strongly advocate the following approach, but I'll list it anyway for comparison with the (I hope) better approaches that others will soon be posting.
In order to maintain the version information in a medium sized Java codebase, I created a simple class to hold the major, minor, and revision version numbers as static constants and produce a formatted version string. I then created a perl script to check the class out of version control, replace the version components with those specified as arguments to the script, and check it back in.
The script does most of the work, so the process of updating the version is fairly simple and quick. I had to implement this quickly, so there are probably better ways of doing it. I just didn't have time, or motivation, to research better alternatives.
I'm not entirely sure what your question is but I'm assuming you want build numbers? When you build your project with Ant you can use the BuildNumber task to keep track of build numbers.
you can use ${bamboo.buildNumber} in ant
look at the following thread
http://forums.atlassian.com/thread.jspa?messageID=257319944
The following link is a pretty good article. If you can get all the plugins working with the version of Bamboo you're on it should be fine.
Release Management with Atlassian Bamboo (outdated)
Release Management with Atlassian Bamboo via the Internet Archive
Related
I'm developing a web app.
If I include a jQuery plugin (or the jQuery file itself), this has to be put under my static directory, which is under SCM, to be served correctly.
Should I gitignore it, or add it, even if I don't plan on modifying anything from it?
And what about binary files (graphic resources) that might come with it?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
My view is that everything you need for your application to run correctly needs to be managed. This includes third-party code.
If you don't put it under SCM, how is it going to get deployed correctly on your production systems? If you have other ways of ensuring that, that's fine, but otherwise you run the risk that successful deployment is a matter of people remembering to do all the right things, rather than some automated low-risk "push the button" procedure.
If you don't manage it under SCM or something similar, how do you ensure that the versions you develop against and test against are the same? And that they're the same as production? Debugging an issue caused by a version difference you don't notice can be horrible.
I generally add external resources to my project directly. Doing so facilitates deployment and ensures that if someone changes the version of this file in your project, you have a clear audit history of what happened in case it causes issues in the code that you've written. Developers should know not to modify these external resources.
You could use something like git submodules, I suppose, but I haven't felt that this is worth the hassle in the past.
Binary files from external sources can be checked in to the project as well, although if they're extremely large you may want to consider a different approach.
There aren't a lot of reasons not to put external resources like jQuery into your repo:
If you pull it down from jQuery every time you check out or deploy, you have less control over which version you're using. This holds true for most third-party libraries; you probably don't want to upgrade your libraries without testing with your code to see if it breaks something.
You'll always have a complete copy of your site when you check out your repository and you won't need to go seeking resources that may have become unavailable.
For small (in terms of filesize) things like jQuery and images, I'd just add them unless you're really, really concerned about space.
It depends.
These arguments relate to having a copy of the library on your system and not pulling it from it's original location.
Arguments in favour:
It will ensure that everything needed for your project can be found in one place when someone else joins your development team. I've lost count of the number of times I've had to scramble around looking for the right versions of libraries in order to be able to get something working.
If you make any modifications to the library you can make these changes to the source controlled version so when a new version comes out you use the source control's merging tools to ensure your edits don't go missing.
Arguments against:
It could mean everyone has a copy of the library locally - unless you map the 3rd party tools to a central server.
Deploying could be problematical - again unless you map the 3rd party tools to a central server and don't include them in the deploy script.
If I want to enable a new piece of functionality to a subset of known users first, is there any automated system of framework that exists to do this?
Perhaps not directly with version control - you might be interested to read how flickr goes about selectively deploying functionality: http://code.flickr.com/blog/page/2/
And this guy talks about implementing something similar in a rails app: http://www.alandelevie.com/2010/05/19/feature-flippers-with-rails/
Most programming languages have if statements.
I don't know what "switching between them at runtime" means. You usually don't check executable code into an SCM system. There's a separate process to check out, build, package, and deploy. That's the province of continuous integration and automated builds in agile techniques.
SCM systems like Subversion allow you to have tags and branches for parallel development. You're always free to build, package, and deploy those as you see fit.
As far as I know no...
If you wanted a revision control system that had multiple versions that you could switch between. Find a SCM you like and lookup branching.
But, it sounds like you want it to me able to switch versions in the SCM programmatically during runtime. The problem with that is, for a revision control system to be able to do that it would have to be aware of the language and how it's implemented.
It would have to know how load and run the next version. For example, if it was C code it would have to dynamically compile and run it on the fly. If it was PHP it would have to magically load the script in a sandbox http server that has PHP support. Etc... In which case, it isn't possible.
You can write an app to change the version in the scm by using the command line.
To do it during runtime, that functionality has to be part of the application itself.
The best (only) way I can think of doing it is to have one common piece of code that acts like a 'bootloader', which uses a system call to checkout the correct branch based on whatever your requirements are. It then (if necessary) compiles that code, and runs it.
It's not technically 'at runtime', but it appears that way if it works.
Your first other option is something that dynamically loads code, but that's very language-dependent, and you'd need to specify.
The other is to permanently have both in the working codebase (which doubles your size if it's a full duplication), and switch at runtime. You can save a good bit of space by using objects that are shared between both branches, and things like conditional compilation to use the same source files for both targets.
We need to regularly synchronize many dozens of binary files (project executables and DLLs) between many developers at several different locations, so that every developer has an up to date environment to build and test at. Due to nature of the project, updates must be done often and on-demand (overnight updates are not sufficient). This is not pretty, but we are stuck with it for a time.
We settled on using a regular version (source) control system: put everything into it as binary files, get-latest before testing and check-in updated DLL after testing.
It works fine, but a version control client has a lot of features which don't make sense for us and people occasionally get confused.
Are there any tools better suited for the task? Or may be a completely different approach?
Update:
I need to clarify that it's not a tightly integrated project - more like extensible system with a heap of "plugins", including thrid-party ones. We need to make sure those modules-plugins works nicely with recent versions of each other and the core. Centralised build as was suggested was considered initially, but it's not an option.
I'd probably take a look at rsync.
Just create a .CMD file that contains the call to rsync with all the correct parameters and let people call that. rsync is very smart in deciding what part of files need to be transferred, so it'll be very fast even when large files are involved.
What rsync doesn't do though is conflict resolution (or even detection), but in the scenario you described it's more like reading from a central place which is what rsync is designed to handle.
Another option is unison
You should look into continuous integration and having some kind of centralised build process. I can only imagine the kind of hell you're going through with your current approach.
Obviously that doesn't help with the keeping your local files in sync, but I think you have bigger problems with your process.
Building the project should be a centralized process in order to allow for better control soon your solution will be caos in the long run. Anyway here is what I'd do.
Create the usual repositories for
source files, resources,
documentation, etc for each project.
Create a repository for resources.
There will be the latest binary
versions for each project as well as
any required resources, files, etc.
Keep a good folder structure for
each project so developers can
"reference" the files directly.
Create a repository for final buidls
which will hold the actual stable
release. This will get the stable
files, done in an automatic way (if
possible) from the checked in
sources. This will hold the real
product, the real version for
integration testing and so on.
While far from being perfect you'll be able to define well established protocols. Check in your latest dll here, generate the "real" versión from latest source here.
What about embedding a 'what' string in the executables and libraries. Then you can synchronise the desired list of versions with a manifest.
We tend to use CVS id strings as a part of the what string.
const char cvsid[] = "#(#)INETOPS_filter_ip_$Revision: 1.9 $";
Entering the command
what filter_ip | grep INETOPS
returns
INETOPS_filter_ip_$Revision: 1.9 $
We do this for all deliverables so we can see if the versions in a bundle of libraries and executables match the list in a associated manifest.
HTH.
cheers,
Rob
Subversion handles binary files really well, is pretty fast, and scriptable. VisualSVN and TortoiseSVN make dealing with Subversion very easy too.
You could set up a folder that's checked out from Subversion with all your binary files (that all developers can push and update to) then just type "svn update" at the command line, or use TortoiseSVN: right click on the folder, click "SVN Update" and it'll update all the files and tell you what's changed.
I run a rather complex project with several independent applications. These use however a couple of shared components. So I have a source tree looking something like the below.
My Project
Application A
Shared1
Shared2
Application B
Application C
All applications have their own MSBuild script that builds the project and all the shared resources it needs. I also run these builds on a CruiseControl controlled continuous integration build server.
When the applications are deployed they are deployed on several servers to distribute load. This means that it’s extremely important to keep track of what build/revision is deployed on each of the different servers (we need to have the current version in the DLL version, for example “1.0.0.68”).
It’s equally important to be able to recreate a revision/build that been built to be able to roll back if something didn’t work out as intended (o yes, that happends ...). Today we’re using SourceSafe for source control but that possible to change if we could present good reasons for that (SS it’s actually working ok for us so far).
Another principle that we try to follow is that it’s only code that been build and tested by the integration server that we deploy further.
"CrusieControl Build Labels" solution
We had several ideas on solving the above. The first was to have the continuous integration server build and locally deploy the project and test it (it does that now). As you probably know a successful build in CruiseControl generates a build label and I guess we somehow could use that to set the DLL version of our executables (so build label 35 would create a DLL like “1.0.0.35” )? The idea was also to use this build label to label the complete source tree. Then we probably could check out by that label and recreate the build later on.
The reason for labeling the complete tree is to include not only the actual application code (that’s in one place in the source tree) but also all the shared items (that’s in different places in the tree). So a successful build of “Application A” would label to whole tree with label “ApplicationA35” for example.
There might however be an issue when trying to recreate this build and setting the DLL version before deploying as we then don’t have access to the CruiseControl generated build label anymore. If all CrusieControl build labels were unique for all the projects we could use only the number for labeling but that’s not the case (both application A and B could at the same time be on build 35) so we have to include the application name in the label. Hence SourceSafe label “Application35”. How can I then recreate build 34 and set 1.0.0.34 to the DLL version numbers once we built build 35?
"Revision number" solution
Someone told me that Subversion for example creates a revision number for the entire source tree on every check in – is this the case? Has SourceSafe something similar? If this is correct the idea is then to grab that revision number when getting latest and build on the CruiseControl server. The revision number could then be used to set the DLL version number (to for example “1.0.0.5678”). I guess we could then get this specific revision for the Subversion if needed and that then would include that application and all the shared items to be able to recreate a specific version from the past. Would that work and could this also be achived using SourceSafe?
Summarize
So the two main requirements are:
Be able to track build/revision number of the build and deployed DLL.
Be able to rebuild a past revision/build, set the old build/revision number on the executables of that build (to comply with requirement 1).
So how would you solve this? What would be your preferred approach and how would you solve it (or do you have a totally different idea?)? **Pleased give detailed answers. **
Bonus question What are the difference between a revision number and a build number and when would one really need both?
Your scheme is sound and achievable in VSS (although I would suggest you consider an alternative, VSS is really an outdated product).
For your "CI" Build - you would do the Versioning take a look at MSBuild Community Tasks Project which has a "Version" tasks. Typically you will have a "Version.txt" in your source tree and the MSBuild task will increment the "Release" number while the developers control the Major.Minor.Release.Revision numbers (that's how a client of mine wanted it). You can use revision if you prefer.
You then would have a "FileUpdate" tasks to edit the AssemblyInfo.cs file with that version, and your EXE's and "DLL's" will have the desired version.
Finally the VSSLabel task will label all your files appropriately.
For your "Rebuild" Build - you would modify your "Get" to get files from that Label, obviously not execute the "Version" task (as you are SELECTING a version to build) and then the FileUpdate tasks would use that version number.
Bonus question:
These are all "how you want to use them" - I would use build number for, well the build number, that is what I'd increment. If you are using CI you'll have very many builds - the vast majority with no intention of ever deploying anywhere.
The major and minor are self evident - but revision I've always used for a "Hotfix" indicator. I intend to have a "1.3" release - which would in reality be a product with say 1.3.1234.0 version. While working on 1.4 - I find a bug - and need a hot fix as 1.3.2400.1. Then when 1.4 is ready - it would be say 1.4.3500.0
I need more space than responding as comments directly allows...
Thanks! Good answer! What would be the
difference, what would be better
solving this using SubVersion for
example?Richard Hallgren (15 hours
ago)
The problems with VSS have nothing to do with this example (although the "Labeling" feature I believe is implemented inefficiently...)
Here are a few of the issues with VSS
1) Branching is basically impossible
2) Shared checkout is generally not used (I know of a few people who have had success with it)
3) performance is very poor - it is exteremly "chatty"
4) unless you have a very small repository - it is completely unreliable, to the point for most shops it's a ticking timebomb.
For 4 - the problem is that VSS is implemented by the entire repository being represented as "flat files" in the file system. When the repository gets over a certain size (I believe 4GB but I'm not confident in that figure) you get a chance for "corruption". As the size increases the chances of corruption grow until it becomes an almost certainty.
So take a look at your repository size - and if you are getting into the Gigabytes - I'd strongly recommend you begin planning on replacing VSS.
Regardless - a google of "VSS Sucks" gives 30K hits... I think if you did start using an alterantive - you will realize it's well worth the effort.
Have CC.net label the successful builds
have each project in the solution link to a common solutioninfo.cs file which contains assembly and file version attributes (remove from each projects assemblyinfo.cs)
Before the build have cruise control run an msbuild regex replace (from msbuild community tasks) to update the version information using the cc.net build label (passed in as a parameter to the msbuild task)
build the solution, run tests, fx cop etc
Optionally revert the solution info file
The result is that all assemblies in the cc.net published build have the same version numbers which conform to a label in the source code repository
UppercuT can do all of this with a custom packaging task to split the applications up. And to get the version number of the source, you might think about Subversion.
It's also insanely easy to get started.
http://code.google.com/p/uppercut/
Some good explanations here: UppercuT
People,
We have 4 or 5 utilities that work in conjunction with our application. These utilities are either .bat files, or VB apps, PowerBuilder, etc. I am trying to manage these utils in source control, and am trying to figure out a better way to assign versions to them. Right now, the developers use the version control's meta-data -- specifically label -- to store the version number of the tool.
My goal is to have individual InstallShield packages for each utility, and an easy means to manage and assign version numbers to these packages.
Would you recommend a separate .ini file with the info, or store the info in InstallShield .ism file itself, or just use the meta-data info from version control tool?
UPDATE:
I like the idea Orion. I have one concern though. The script that increments the version number... it can not be intelligent enough to increment Major number etc. right. e.g. if one of the utils has version 1.2.3 and we are at a point where the new version is 2.0.0. The script may not be able to handle this.
I think this has to do a lot with our branching techniques -- we don't have any. The folks thought since the utils are so small, the source may not need branches.
PowerBuilder in particular has a nice trick you can do to incorporate the build number from an ini file into the compiled application.
Details here: http://www.pbdr.com/pbtips/ex/autorev.htm
We have ini file inside source control that stores the build number and its value is used in our build scripts to determine what label to apply to the source tree after a successful build. Works very nicely for our needs. When we branch, we do have to manually kick the file to increment the proper number though.
I managed our build system at my last job, which seemed to have some parallels to what you're asking.
There were ~30 C++ projects which needed compiling, and various .NET/Java things, and the odd perl script.
This was all built on our build machine using NAnt - If I were doing it today I'd use rake, but the idea is the same.
We basically had an auto-incrementing build number which was stored in a version.txt file in the root of the repository.
Each time we did a build (automatically done each night, or also on-demand if neccessary) the script would increment this number and check the file back into source control.
All the other apps referenced this file for their version number, or for things which didn't support working like this, the script would set environment variables or perform other workarounds
I'm pretty sure that our installshield programs referenced an environment variable for their version number, but we deprecated them in favour of wix as installshield really did suck
in the case of visual studio, grep/replace the number within the .csproj files, and check them back in
Hope this gives you some ideas
Using the meta data from your version control system should keep things simpler. It's how your developers already use the system. There is no additional file to maintain. My personal experience has taught me to version the satellite applications with the same as version as the main app. K.I.S.S