Using Ant as a continuous testing tool - unit-testing

So after much hunting I failed to find a continuous testing tool for IntelliJ 14.
I stumbled across a post that references uses eclipse and Ant in order to simulate this. On save, Ant then runs the tests for any tests that were modified.
I've tried to replicate this but, alas! I've never used Ant before and am finding it extremely difficult. I've setup and configured a generic Ant build file in Intellij but simply cannot figure out how to achieve my task.
Any help, pointers in the right direction is very much appreciated. I've searched but only found information that needs to be decrypted first.

Eclipse has the builder feature, you create an AntBuilder for your project, see also https://stackoverflow.com/a/15075732/130683.
IntelliJ has a trigger feature that might serve the purpose.
Also Infinitest , which provides a Continous Testing Plugin for Eclipse and IntelliJ might be helpful.

Ant is a build tool. Although IntelliJ does that for you, you need IntelliJ to do this which means you can't distribute your application without IntelliJ.
Ant uses a dependency matrix for building. This is sometimes difficult for developers to understand, but it basically means that you define the steps, how the steps are dependent upon each other, and let the build tool figure out exactly how to do its job. Ant is for Java like Make is to C and C++ applications.
Ant uses targets which are the steps you specify to do. For example, you might have a target called package that will build your jar or war. That target might depend upon another target called compile to compile the code. That target might depend upon a code generation phases (like if you had WSDL files).
Each target is a set of tasks. For example, the compile target is likely to have the <javac> task in it. It might also need the <mkdir> task to create the work directories where you classfiles are stored.
There are plenty of books on Ant, and there's a tutorial on the Ant Website. You didn't explain the issues you were having, so it's hard to be more specific than this.
Ant can also run your unit tests too. There's a <junit> target which can run the tests, and you specify whether or not you want to run almost all of your <junit> tests via the <batchtest> sub-entity or if you have a program driver you specify via the <test> entity.
Once you get an Ant script that can build and run your tests outside of IntelliJ, you can now get a Continuous Integration tool like Jenkins. A continuous integration tool watches your repository for changes, and if a change occurs, will then build your application. It's a great way to catch errors early on.
What does this have to do with Continuous Testing? Well, if you have your Ant script able to run unit tests, the Continuous Integration engine not only can build your app, but then run the unit tests with each and every change that occurs.
Jenkins is nice because it's very simple to use. You download a jenkins.war and you can launch the Jenkins webpage via the java -jar jenkins.war command. This brings up a web server on port 8080 on your machine. Obviously, Jenkins can be configured to run on different ports and under Tomcat if you so desire. It can integrate with Windows Active Directory, LDAP, and many other user verification systems.
Jenkins will show you charts and graphs of your tests, let you know which tests failed or passed, and will notify you of any problems via email, tweets, IM, Jabber, and even Facebook posts. People have even setup a traffic light in their offices that turns red when builds or tests fail.
Take it one step at a time. Get a good book on Ant. Read the tutorial on the Ant website. Then try to get a working Ant script to just to build your app. If you are having specific issues, you can ask for help.
Once you have the build going, extend the script to run your unit tests. Once that is done, download Jenkins and try to get that up and running.

Related

How to use Jacoco with application that requires install and configuration to run

I am attempting to set up Java code coverage for a fairly complex app that
combines multiple large modules, only one of which I need to check coverage on
uses a combination of ant and Maven for builds
cannot be run except as an installed application on a server, with configuration
the automated tests to be analyzed for coverage are not part of the application build and make use of API calls to the application server from a remote client
The examples given in the jacoco documentation and in the online sources I have found assume the app under test is not previously installed and the tests are unit/integration tests run as part of the build. The documentation does not cover the details of how the jacoco instrumentation is done or when the call is recorded to a particular line of code. If I use ant or maven to instrument a particular module, use that module to build the full app, install it on a server, and configure it, will my remote tests then generate the .exec file?
Any advice on how to achieve the end goal (knowing how much of our code is covered by the tests) is greatly appreciated, including better search terms than "jacoco for installed app" which as you can imagine is ... not very useful. My google-fu is humbled.

Want to make a Job on Hudson C/C++

Hopefully I find here someone who has experience with Hudson and its functions.
Now . I have Hudson installed this did not reveal any problems. But now I want to create a new job and that I'm developing in C / C + +.
In addition, I am working on Subversion svn where I run on the first error. Hudson did not find my svn . He says that I need an authentication . As I learned I can at Hudson authenticate but that does not work .
Maybe one of you knows how to create a project.
The things should be done in the job of Hudson.
Hudson is on my computer (local ) delete my project.
Then Hudson to access my SVN and check out the project from there.
The whole is now compiling Hudson . ( The best would be a compiler for C / C + + for Visual Studio 2008 compiler ) . The compiler then creates a * . Exe file.
Now Hudson to start the project on the basis of the *. Exe file and run the program .
Last but not least is to Hudson case of an error or if it was all right, inform the persons working on the project via email.
So that would be it what I 've hoped of Hudson. Otherwise, I take the whole not much. I know that I can do all this via a batch file . But that's not my goal. I want Hudson to automate so that I can start at midnight my builds / tests daily.
Do you think that at Hudson are my requirement too high?
For your help I would be very grateful , as I am stuck for days.
Here is a "basic" Hudson job
Create a new free-style software project job.
Configure that job.
(Optional) Configure triggers, such as "timer", "SCM polling", or others.
(Optional) Under Source Code Management section, select your SCM source and configure your repositories and local workspace
Under Build section, select Add build step and select:
Execute Shell if on *nix
OR
Execute Windows Batch Command if on Windows
OR
Pick whatever build-step plugin you are using.
(If using either of the "execute" build steps) Write your build/make/compile command as you would from command line.
(If using another plugin build step) Configure the plugin options according to your requirements.
(Optional) Archive the artifacts of the build with Archive the artifacts under Post-build Actions
(Optional) Execute other post-build actions
(Optional) Send out an email
Now to address your specific scenario. First things first, your question is too broad, and may get locked. Don't get discouraged if that happens, create separate question for each item individually. I cannot cover in details all these items, but I will give you an overview.
The SCM part
Based on your previous question, No Credentials to try in Hudson, I am now guessing that you are not providing Hudson with an HTTP URL to your SVN server, but trying to give it your local workspace location... Please do the command line check that I asked in that question.
You need to provide it with a proper HTTP server URL. Hudson will check out the project from the SVN URL you provided, under what is called a Workspace. The location of workspace can differ, based on your Hudson configuration, but it is a folder inside Hudson installation that is dedicated to the job. It can be referenced from within the job through %WORKSPACE% environment variable.
There are ways to use a different workspace location, but that is outside the scope of this overview. The whole SCM part is also optional, you can rely on existing file system, but this is not a good approach, and again, out of scope of this overview.
The Build step
After Hudson checked-out/updated the Workspace with your SVN, comes the building step. Hudson can do Execute Windows Batch Command by default. It can also Invoke Ant by default. (It can also do Maven, but that is not applicable to your situation)
To do other types of builds, you need a Build Wrapper plugin. In your particular case, the MSBuild plugin is probably what you want. I've never used MSBuild, so cannot give you details. Again, if you have a specific question on how to use MSBuild plugin, you should probably make a separate question with specific issues.
So, using either Execute Windows Batch Command or MSBuild plugin, configure your building step.
Running the exe???
This is very vague. You want to start the .exe and then what? Will it quit and you need an exit code? Do you want to see it on the screen? Again, this is very broad, and deserves a separate question (or read existing questions). If you just want to make a call to the .exe, you can configure a second Execute Windows Batch Command step, type there call path\to\yourfile.exe. But most likely you will not see that on screen. Read my answer here, Open Excel on Jenkins CI, on details of launching an .exe from Hudson/Jenkins that would be visible on screen.
Email
If you want a simple email, Hudson Post-Build actions has a way to send an email. For better customization options, you would want Email-Ext plugin. Once again, if you need details on how to use the email-ext plugin, create a new question (after searching existing questions first), as this is too much to cover in one question.
Conclusion
Your requirements are not too high, but Hudson is not a magic tool that will do the work for you. You still need to configure every step of it. And unless you have a Maven based project (which integrate very well with Hudson), a lot of actions will need to be done through the Execute Windows Batch Command and scripting of your own.

Coldfusion continuous Integration

let me begin by saying I 'm a coldfusion newbie.
I 'm trying to research if its possible to do the following and what would be the best approach to achieve it.
Whenever a developer checks in code into SVN, I would like to do a get all the new changes/files and do an auto build to check if the code can be deployed successfully to production server. I guess there are two parts to it, one syntax checking and second integration test(if functionality is working as expected). For the later part some unit test tools would have to be used.
Can someone comment on their experience doing something similar for coldfusion.
Sorry for being a bit vague...I know its a very open-ended question but any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks
There's a project called "Cloudy With A Chance of Tests" that purports to do what you require. In particular it brings together a number of other CFML code analysis projects (VarScope & QueryParam) to check code, as well as unit testing. I am not currently using it myself but did have a look at it some time ago (more than 12 months) and it appeared to be quite good.
https://github.com/mhenke/Cloudy-With-A-Chance-Of-Tests
Personally I run MXUnit tests in Jenkins using the instructions from the MXUnit site - available here:
http://wiki.mxunit.org/display/default/Continuous+Integration+--+Running+tests+with+Jenkins
Essentially this is set up as an ant task in Jenkins, which executes the MXUnit tests and reports back the results.
We're not doing fully continuos integration, but we have a process which automates some of the drudgery of our builds:
replace the site's application.cf(m|c) with one that tells users that the app is being deployed (we had QA staff raising defects that were due to re-deployments)
read a database manifest XML which lists all SQL scripts which make up the current release. We concatenate the scripts into a single upgrade script, suitable for shipping
execute the SQL script against the server's DB, noting any errors. The concatenation process also adds a line of SQL after each imported script that white to a runlog table, so we can see what ran, how long it took and which build it was associated with. If you're looking to replicate this step, take a look at Liquibase
deploy the latest code
make an http call to a ?reset=true type URL to tell the app to re-initialize
execute any tests
The build is requested manually through the build servers we have, but you click a button, make tea and it's done.
We've just extended the above to cope with multiple servers in a cluster and it ticks along nicely. I think the above suggestion of using the Jenkins SVN plugin to automate the process sounds like the way to go.

Deploying with team build and psexec -> integration tests error

I have a team build (upgrade template, tfs2010, msbuild) compiling and testing a WCF service. We use psexec and the exec task to remote install the service (wix installer) on the web server, prior to running an integration test suite against it. However sometimes our nightly build fails with a compilation error - can only see the first 1024 bytes and most of it is css styles. I've tried to delay the tests with sleeps, thinking it might be due to long JIT. However all 600+ integration tests fails. In the build log it seems that the exec task with psexec executes synchronously, as expected, and returns an exit 0. Could anyone come up with a reason to why this occurs now and then?
This doesn't sound like it's anything specific to TFS, msbuild or psexec -- it sounds like there may be an interim installation, configuration, or coding problem with the service. The point of CI and integration tests is to get early feedback on your process, and apparently something is wrong. The trick is drilling down into the problem and ruling out where the issue(s) reside.
Psexec claims the WiX deployment went fine, but did it? Are all files present? Were previous versions of the installation properly removed, or did they get upgraded correctly?
All 600 tests fail, but the tests don't contain the proper stack trace - can you reproduce the problem outside of the tests? Eg, when the tests fail can you emulate a test manually or run one of the existing tests with a debugger attached to see the same stack trace? One strategy might be to identify one or two specific tests that accurately validate the deployment -- run just these tests after the deployment and if these tests fail you should abort the build and then leave the server in a failed state for deeper analysis. this may require customization the build template but it may be worth the effort.
Can you add logging to the WCF service? Better logging to the tests?
Lastly, CI as mentioned previously is about early feedback. The general rule is, "If something is painful then you should do it more often." Focus on pain points, isolate them and iteratively improve them. When the pain diminishes, focus on other pain points. In your case, consider running your "nightly" build in a rolling fashion - you'll find your intermittent problem after a few runs rather than weeks.

Is there an ideal way to move from Staging to Production for Coldfusion code?

I am trying to work out a good way to run a staging server and a production server for hosting multiple Coldfusion sites. Each site is essentially a fork of a repo, with site specific changes made to each. I am looking for a good way to have this staging server move code (upon QA approval) to the production server.
One fanciful idea involved compiling the sites each into EAR files to be run on the production server, but I cannot seem to wrap my head around Coldfusion archives, plus I cannot see any good way of automating this, especially the deployment part.
What I have done successfully before is use subversion as a go between for a site, where once a site is QA'd the code is committed and then the production server's working directory would have an SVN update run, which would then trigger a code copy from the working directory to the actual live code. This worked fine, but has many moving parts, and still required some form of server access to each server to run the commits and updates. Plus this worked for an individual site, I think it may be a nightmare to setup and maintain this architecture for multiple sites.
Ideally I would want a group of developers to have FTP access with the ability to log into some control panel to mark a site for QA, and then have a QA person check the site and mark it as stable/production worthy, and then have someone see that a site is pending and click a button to deploy the updated site. (Any of those roles could be filled by the same person mind you)
Sorry if that last part wasn't so much the question, just a framework to understand my current thought process.
Agree with #Nathan Strutz that Ant is a good tool for this purpose. Some more thoughts.
You want a repeatable build process that minimizes opportunities for deltas. With that in mind:
SVN export a build.
Tag the build in SVN.
Turn that export into a .zip, something with an installer, etc... idea being one unit to validate with a set of repeatable deployment steps.
Send the build to QA.
If QA approves deploy that build into production
Move whole code bases over as a build, rather than just changed files. This way you know what's put into place in production is the same thing that was validated. Refactor code so that configuration data is not overwritten by a new build.
As for actual production deployment, I have not come across a tool to solve the multiple servers, different code bases challenge. So I think you're best served rolling your own.
As an aside, in your situation I would think through an approach that allows for a standardized codebase, with a mechanism (i.e. an API) that allows for the customization you're describing. Otherwise managing each site as a "custom" project is very painful.
Update
Learning Ant: Ant in Action [book].
On Source Control: for the situation you describe, I would maintain a core code base and overlays per site. Export core, then site specific over it. This ensures any core updates that site specific changes don't override make it in.
Call this combination a "build". Do builds with Ant. Maintain an Ant script - or perhaps more flexibly an ant configuration file - per core & site combination. Track version number of core and site as part of a given build.
If your software is stuffed inside an installer (Nullsoft Install Shield for instance) that should be part of the build. Otherwise you should generate a .zip file (.ear is a possibility as well, but haven't seen anyone actually do this with CF). Point being one file that encompasses the whole build.
This build file is what QA should validate. So validation includes deployment, configuration and functionality testing. See my answer for deployment on how this can flow.
Deployment:
If you want to automate deployment QA should be involved as well to validate it. Meaning QA would deploy / install builds using the same process on their servers before doing a staing to production deployment.
To do this I would create something that tracks what server receives what build file and whatever credentials and connection information is necessary to make that happen. Most likely via FTP. Once transferred, the tool would then extract the build file / run the installer. This last piece is an area I would have to research as to how it's possible to let one server run commands such as extraction or installation remotely.
You should look into Ant as a migration tool. It allows you to package your build process with a simple XML file that you can run from the command line or from within Eclipse. Creating an automated build process is great because it documents the process as well as executes it the same way, every time.
Ant can handle zipping and unzipping, copying around, making backups if needed, working with your subversion repository, transferring via FTP, compressing javascript and even calling a web address if you need to do something like flush the application memory or server cache once it's installed. You may be surprised with the things you can do with Ant.
To get started, I would recommend the Ant manual as your main resource, but look into existing Ant builds as a good starting point to get you going. I have one on RIAForge for example that does some interesting stuff and calls a groovy script to do some more processing on my files during the build. If you search riaforge for build.xml files, you will come up with a great variety of them, many of which are directly for ColdFusion projects.