Chaminda's DevOps Journey with MSFT: 2015

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Build Java Code with Visual Studio Team Services Using Ant

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has evolved into cross platform capable, great Application Lifecycle Management and DevOps tool. Building java applications with VSTS hosted build services is possible now.
Let’s look at step by step how we can achieve this.
First we need a java code. The below is very simple java code just printing hello world.

/**
 * The HelloWorldApp class implements an application that
 * simply prints "Hello World!" to standard output.
 */
class HelloWorldAppAnt {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World - @ Forum!"); // Display the string.
    }
}

Check this code in and define a build in VSTS. TO the Build definition add an Ant build step.

Set the repository.

We need an Ant Build xml file to do an Ant build. Simple Ant build file looks like below.

<project name="HelloWorld" basedir="." default="main">

    <property name="src.dir"     value="src"/>

    <property name="build.dir"   value="build"/>
    <property name="classes.dir" value="${build.dir}/classes"/>
    <property name="jar.dir"     value="${build.dir}/jar"/>

    <property name="main-class"  value="HelloWorldAppAnt"/>



    <target name="clean">
        <delete dir="${build.dir}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="compile">
        <mkdir dir="${classes.dir}"/>
        <javac srcdir="${src.dir}" destdir="${classes.dir}"/>
    </target>

    <target name="jar" depends="compile">
        <mkdir dir="${jar.dir}"/>
        <jar destfile="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" basedir="${classes.dir}">
            <manifest>
                <attribute name="Main-Class" value="${main-class}"/>
            </manifest>
        </jar>
    </target>

    <target name="run" depends="jar">
        <java jar="${jar.dir}/${ant.project.name}.jar" fork="true"/>
    </target>

    <target name="clean-build" depends="clean,jar"/>

    <target name="main" depends="clean,run"/>

</project>

More information on Ant build xml files can be found in below links. https://ant.apache.org/manual/tutorial-HelloWorldWithAnt.html https://ant.apache.org/manual/using.html
Add this file to source control.

Specify the path to Ant build file in the Ant build step.

Add a publish step to enable downloading contents of the build.

Now a build can be queued and it will build the java code in to runnable bytecode (.class). This build output can be downloaded as shown below.

The byte code can run with “java classname” in command prompt.

.jar file can be run with “java –jar jarfilename” in command prompt.

Saturday, 5 December 2015

Apply Build Number to Assembly Version with New TFS Builds (Build vNext)

To assign the build number as the assembly version, PowerShell script available here can be used. Let’s see how to set this up for TFS builds step by step.
First, a small console application created below as the sample.

Code segment written to output the assembly version.

Setup a build in Visual Studio Team Services to build the application. Build number is set to represent version 4.1.3.X (the X is the build number for version 4.1.3). This can be set to match regex pattern "\d+\.\d+\.\d+\.\d+".

Set the repository path

This builds successfully and the build output contains the .exe.

Next download the “ApplyVersionToAssemblies.ps1” from here. Download link can be found in this page.

Add the script to the Team Project and check in.

Add new build step to execute PowerShell script.

Move the added step as the first step.

Set the script.

When build script downloaded from github this error occurs due to incorrect environment variable. The script is developed to work with TFS 2013 XAML template builds. The scriptceript should be updated to “$Env:BUILD_SOURCESDIRECTORY”, “$Env:BUILD_BUILDNUMBER”, instead of “$Env:TF_BUILD_SOURCESDIRECTORY”, “$Env:TF_BUILD_BUILDNUMBER”. Remove the “-not $Env:TF_BUILD” condition.

The above changes make the compatible to run with new TFS build. The assemblies now get updated with the build number as version number.

Monday, 30 November 2015

VS Team Services – Work Item Visualization Extension

There are many great extensions available for Visual Studio Team Services (former VSO), in the Market Place. One of them is Work Item Visualization Extension. You can add this extension to your Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) account.

First browse the extension in market place.

Click on Install.

Select the VSTS account.

Confirm to install the extension.

Extension installed for the VSTS account.

Work items can be visualize with the extension, with drill down capability.

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

VSO as A Cross Platform Capable DevOps Tool – My Tech Talk @ SLASSCOM IT Week

http://www.slasscom.lk/content/mastering-continous-delivery

Embedded image permalink

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Send Test Result Email After Running Automated Tests with Release Management

Getting automated tests executed after deployment actions, it self is challenging with release management. Below are some helpful links on “how to overcome them”.
Resolve Common Errors - Run Automated Tests with VS Release Management 2013
Disable Lock Screen on Windows 8.1 to Prevent - Automation engine is unable to playback the test because it is not able to interact with the desktop
Increase Default Timeout of Copying Test Binaries to Test Client – Allow Release Management to Run Tests with Increased Timeout
Once everything in place, with a customized TcmExec.ps1, tests get executed with RM.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an email delivered to the team with the test results like shown below?

To do this it is possible to modify the TcmExec.ps1 (How to get the TcmExec.ps1 is described here), to read the details of the test result file (.trx) and create a formatted email message to sent to the defined recipients. As the first step script is introduced with few more parameters.

Extract the build number from the build location path given that the build path contains it.This is to make Test result email look nicer if the build number is not supplied by build TM server.

Extract test result details into a temp table to format it for the email.

Send email and print result in output log of RM action.

Avoid failing the Release Management Action, even if failing tests found when the email send option is set to true. This will make sure deployment completes and the required team members are informed of the Test Results. and give them the option of proceeding or stopping the release pipeline to next steps, after evaluating test results.

Setup a custom tool in RM using the PowerShell script TcmExec.ps1.

If components are already created with the tool they need to be updated with new parameters manually.

Set up the release template to use the test runner with new parameters. All other common issues mentioned at the linked post in the beginning of this post.