[V3dot10] Prototyping an autobuild system

[Keith Hodges]

Ralph Johnson wrote:
> On 1/16/07, Keith Hodges <keith_hodges at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> a. A script runs periodically to check an rss feed to see if any pages
>> have changed. It only looks at the first 150 lines or so to obtain the
>> most recent changes rather than wasting time parsing the whole lot.
>> (alternatives, check a mailbox file, or run a smail script on receipt of
>> email - I think that the rss solution is the most generic)
>>
>> b. the script picks and logs the first page whose change date is more
>> modern than the last page the script processed. It records the change
>> date in a file.
>
> I have been trying to figure out why you would want to do this.  My
> first reaction was that this was completely crazy.  I do not want a
> build process to randomly execute ANYTHING, but want it to be
> repeatable.  But I think I figured it out.
Ok, I didnt make a point clear. I said that when a page changes it looks 
for a script for that page and runs it.

This does run a script for every page, but not all of those scripts are 
for building anything. The default script simply keeps a local mirror of 
the website up to date. Only those pages that match for being 'build 
pages' will launch build scripts.

i.e. we would have two main build scripts available, and hence have only 
two pages responsible for triggering them.

1) Make:From39To391.action
2) Make:From39To310.action
> First, you are not talking about an autobuild server, you are talking
> about a test server.  The purpose of this is to test a set of changes
> against all the different images that are supposed to be built from
> those changes.  "stable", "dev" and "full" are not branches, they are
> images built from different configurations of packages.  This is very
> important!
This is correct, stable, dev, full, and bloated are different 
configurations of packages on top of base.

-stable,  -unstable, and -kph are branches
> Second, you are trying to define the UI of the test server.  You want
> people to be able to  define a new configuration or a new set of
> changes and then to have the test server produce a set of results for
> those tests.  Do you agree?
Yes
> There will be plenty of pages on the wiki that are NOT direct input to
> the server.  I think it would be a mistake to have the server
> automatically execute every page.  For one thing, someone might submit
> a page many times before it is ready to be executed.  I think that
> pages need to be tagged "ready to execute", and the test server should
> only execute ones that are ready.
Only those pages which have a script get executed. At present the 
scripts look like this.

1. each.page.trigger  - triggered when each and every page changes this 
calls both a) and b) below.

2. a) each.page.action  - a script which is run for every page,
                                      - this keeps the local mirror of 
the website up to date.
3. b)

i) script for that page - exact match
ii) script for that page - prefix match
iii) default script - not.found.action (does nothing)

So, for building you only need one script

Make[any].build which runs for any page that begins with 'Make:' or 
'Make-'or 'Make '

The page Make:From39To391 contains information like so

first_build:
  build_no: 1
  initiator: kph
  comment: 'testing'

second_build:
  build_no:2

Note only changed items need be added to the second record, data is 
inherited. This will invoke a build iff, that build does not exist. The 
format of the data is (like it or loath it) yaml, but you don't really 
need to know that.

> Also, if this is really a UI for the test server then it ought to
> display results, not just input.  Once the test server has run tests,
> the wiki page that defines the test should also give the result, at
> least "red" or "green".
>
> Here is an easy way to both control job execution and to control what
> results are displayed.  There should be a Squeak command to define the
> name of a job, such as "Installer jobNamed: 'devWithREJ2-5-07changes'"
> and then at the end of the page I put a link to
> "http://testserver.squeak.org/devWithREJ2-5-07changes.gif" which
> includes a little green picture that ways "4230 tests passed" or a
> little red one that says "4230 tests run, 5 failed".  If a job hasn't
> been run yet then the picture won't be there, and you have to refresh
> the page to see it.  Dynamic refresh would be better, of coruse.
> Perhaps a little JavaScript.
thats a good idea

Keith

		
____________________________________________________ 
 
Yahoo! Photos is now offering a quality print service from just 7p a photo. http://uk.photos.yahoo.com