What’s New in 1.4.4: New Tasks

Gendarme, NDepend and ZIP Files

Previously in CruiseControl.NET we have shied away from adding new tool-based tasks in CruiseControl.NET. This has mainly been because these tools have third-party dependencies, a lot of which we cannot guarantee their availability.

However, this approach has made things harder for administrators. The administrator needs to modify the build script to execute the tool, and then they need to modify the config to merge the results from the tool. It places the onus on the administrator to ensure the correct files are merged.

We are now trying a new approach and started adding some tool-based tasks to CruiseControl.NET. As well as executing the tool, these new tasks will merge all the results from the tool (including non-XML files). Now an administrator just needs to add the relevant task to ccnet.config and everything else is handled (although it is still possible to do things the old way as well).

In the 1.4.4 release we have added two new tasks and a new publisher.

Gendarme Analysis

Gendarme is a tool produced by the Mono project to inspect assemblies for common problems. The full details on this tool is available at http://mono-project.com/Gendarme.

This task will run the Gendarme tool and then merge the results. The tool is highly configurable (http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Gendarme+Task has the full details on what is available). Additionally there are now some Gendarme reports that can be included in the dashboard – including a package to install them.

The following is a brief example of how this tool could be configured:

<gendarme>

	<executable>Tools\gendarme.exe</executable>

	<assemblies>

		<assemblyMatch expr='*.dll' />

		<assemblyMatch expr='*.exe' />

	</assemblies>

	<limit>200</limit>

	<failBuildOnFoundDefects>true</failBuildOnFoundDefects>

</gendarme>

This will run the Gendarme application (tools\Gendarme.exe) and analyse all the .dll and .exe files in the working folder. It will report a maximum of 200 defects and fail the build if any defects are found.

NDepend Analysis

I’ve already posted recently on this task (read it here), so I won’t go into too many details. As the basic details, NDepend is a third party tool to analyse a code base for complexity (their website is http://www.ndepend.com/). This new tool will run the application (again with a full set of options) and then merge the results, plus there is a dashboard package to automatically install the reports.

One of the major enhancements for this task is not in the actual task itself, but in the dashboard. As part of the reporting phase of NDepend it generates a number of helpful images. Previously, these images have not been available in the dashboard (or at least not available with a work-around.) The 1.4.4 release now allows these images to be displayed, so the NDepend reports are available in their full glory.

Since this is a general fix, it also means that images can be displayed for other reports as well. Sometime in the future I’ll write a post on how this works, so other reports can also utilise this functionality.

The following is a brief example of how this task could be configured:

<ndepend>

  <project>NDepend-Project.xml</project>

  <executable>tools\NDepend.Console.exe</executable>

  <emitXml>true</emitXml>

  <outputDir>NDepend-Reports</outputDir>

  <baseDir>project\</baseDir>

</ndepend>

This will run the NDepend application (tools\NDepend.Console.exe) on the NDepend-project.xml file (this will need to be generated using NDepend). The base directory for the tool will be the project folder under the working folder and the results will be written to NDepend-Reports.

Full details on the NDepend task are available at http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/NDepend+Task.

Package (ZIP) Publisher

It has always been possible to generate ZIP packages of files in CruiseControl.NET – just not directly from CruiseControl.NET itself (normally it’s been done via a NAnt, MSBuild or other build script task.) The 1.4.4 release now includes a built-in ZIP package generator.

This publisher will compress the specified files into a single ZIP file. The options include the level of compression, the files to include (including wild-cards), and whether to include the directory structure or not. This will generate the ZIP file, copy it to the artefacts folder and add it to a list of generated packages for the project (this list will be utilised more in future releases.)

One of the additional feature for this publisher is the ability to generate a manifest. A manifest is a list of all the included files, plus additional metadata. CruiseControl.NET uses manifest files in the dashboard packages to control the installation of the package, just to provide one example of how a manifest can be used.

Rather than forcing a set format for the manifest, it is possible to choose a manifest generator (or even write one of your own.) Currently there are only two choices – a custom format that just lists the files plus some build metadata, or a manifest importer. Hopefully in future we’ll expand the number of options (including the ability to generate a dashboard package manifest.)

The following is a brief example of how this publisher could be configured:

<package>

  <name>Binaries</name>

  <compression>9</compression>

  <manifest type="defaultManifestGenerator" />

  <files>

    <file>*.dll</file>

    <file>*.exe</file>

  </files>

</package>

This will compress all the .dll and .exe files from the working folder and store them in a ZIP file called binaries.zip using maximum compression. Additionally it will generate a CruiseControl.NET style manifest.

Again, full details on this new publisher is available on Confluence at http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Package+Publisher.

A Quick Wrap-Up

In this post I’ve briefly mentioned the two new tasks and the new publisher for the 1.4.4 release. We are working on adding additional tasks and expanding the current functionality for future releases, so if you think there are other tools we should integrate into CruiseControl.NET let me know.