Refactor Your Build Scripts
Posted by Davy Brion on December 7th, 2009
Just refactored our build scripts because i was getting annoyed at the amount of duplicate XML in each project’s build file. It now looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\ItemSolutions\build_g3_db_creation_sl_tests.proj" />
<PropertyGroup>
<ProjectName>MY_PROJECT_NAME</ProjectName>
<GenesisProjectCode>MY_PROJECT_NAME</GenesisProjectCode>
<GenesisAnalysisId>1337</GenesisAnalysisId>
<GenesisDocumentDescription>MY_GENESIS_DOCUMENT_DESCRIPTION</GenesisDocumentDescription>
<LavalampDirectory>\\LAVALAMP\MY_PROJECT_FOLDER</LavalampDirectory>
<DatabaseSchema>MY_DATABASE_SCHEMA</DatabaseSchema>
<DatabaseServer>MY_DATABASE_SERVER</DatabaseServer>
<DatabaseUser>MY_DATABASE_USER</DatabaseUser>
<DatabasePassword>MY_DATABASE_PASSWORD</DatabasePassword>
<DatabaseScriptsSubversionLocation>MY_DATABASESCRIPT_SUBVERSION_LOCATION</DatabaseScriptsSubversionLocation>
<NormalTestConfigPath>MY_PROJECT\bin\$(Configuration)\hibernate.cfg.xml</NormalTestConfigPath>
<TestConfigPathForBuildServer>MY_PROJECT\hibernate.cfg.xml.onbuildserver</TestConfigPathForBuildServer>
<SilverlightTestAssemblyName>MY_PROJECT.Silverlight.Tests.dll</SilverlightTestAssemblyName>
<SilverlightTestsXapLocation>MY_PROJECT.Silverlight.Tests\Bin\$(Configuration)\MY_PROJECT.Silverlight.Tests.xap</SilverlightTestsXapLocation>
<SilverlightTestsDllLocation>MY_PROJECT.Silverlight.Tests\Bin\$(Configuration)\MY_PROJECT.Silverlight.Tests.dll</SilverlightTestsDllLocation>
</PropertyGroup>
</Project>
This build script compiles all of the code, creates a new database from scratch, runs the unit tests (including the silverlight tests), publishes the testresults into Genesis, and updates our lavalamp. In case a particular build needs to divert from the standard operation procedure, you can override whatever target you want in the build process to customize it (or disable it).
Now ask yourself: is there any reason why you should tolerate duplication in your build scripts?
December 9th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
What problem are you solving? You just removed the duplicate steps as in formalizing how each project should be build, tested, labeled and packaged?
December 9th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
if a build process is the same for multiple projects, then why wouldn’t i solve the problem of having large, elaborate build scripts which all have to be modified when we modify the build process?