I'm working on transferring our old C++ codebase from the Perl-based build process we were using (I know, I know) to a custom TFS build. One of the things I need to do is edit a version.h file that bakes some version info into our code.
However, when I create my workspace and try to edit any of the files with a custom activity of mine, it reports that the workspace is write-only. How do I remove this restriction? I can see that Activities.CreateWorkspace has a security option, but I can't find any good documentation on how I can use that.
Any TFS gurus willing to help me out?
You can use the "File" activity from the TFS Community Build Extensions to toggle the read-only flag on the file(s).
Alternatively you could create your own activity from their source.
Related
We have a team of several members using Eclipse for a C & C++ application that we commit the make files it generates as part of the package build. I have added and committed a library to the project then we decide against using it. So I remove it from my project and commit the change to git for the rest of the team. When anyone else pulls the change their Eclipse reverts the removal to the .cproject file preventing the removal of the unwanted library, include paths, and toolchain paths. The only thing that seems to work is to blow away the project metadata and re-import the project, which is a hassle.
How do I easily get everyone else's Eclipse to accept the removal and stop adding it back in?
Thanks.
The issue comes from not committing the .metadata folder. Eclipse keeps a backup of the project somewhere in there and continually changes these file making it unreasonable to commit to source control.
The only thing I've found to always work is to delete the project from the workspace, but do not remove the files, and import the updated project after pulling the updates from source control.
You and your team may not be able or willing to do this, but it is easier to not check in IDE specific files at all and allow a build tool plugin like Maven or Gradle to handle the project structure and classpath. This is how I've worked with team members for years without experiencing this problem.
There is quite a bit of a paradigm shift doing this, and depending on the flexibility of your project it may not be feasible.
Edit:
I noticed you are of the C persuasion. I don't recommend Maven, but consider Gradle.
https://docs.gradle.org/3.5/userguide/native_software.html
Historical context:
We have a project consisting of following parts:
Host application (C++)
Scripting Engine library (also written in C++)
A lot of C++ plugins (around 30+)
A lot of scripts that tie all the stuff together...
From version to version some plugins are added and some are removed.
Till now we used Visual Studio solution (*.sln) to contain all the projects (*.vcxproj) for Host application, Scripting Engine library and plugins (one *.vcxproj per plugin!).
To share sources/projects we use proprietary source control system, and till now once we merged updates from the server (some plugin projects are added and some plugin projects are removed) all the project tree in the VS were refreshed thanks to "reload" feature (no action was required from developer to see and build updated source tree).
The problem:
Now our senior management decided to switch to Eclipse CDT/MinGW pair and we faced the issue that Eclipse Workspace is not the same thing as Visual Studio *.sln ...
Now when some plugin project folder appears or some plugin project folders disappears corresponding workspace items do not update accordingly.
Thus from now every developer has to use File>Import...>General>"Existing projects into workspace" File/"Open Projects from File System" to add new projects to own Workspace manually once they were added by other developer to the source control.
Also one has to manually remove from own Workspace those plugin projects that were deleted from source control...
This is a great contrast with what we previously had with Visual Studio where "reload" feature automatically updated project/source tree (just bacause all the information arrived with *.sln/*.vcxproj from server).
Our first option was to place Workspace\.metadata etc stuff to source control (as we previously did for *.sln files) but "that is not the way how Eclipse Workspace is designed to be used" (this is even not possible just because paths in .metadata\* are absolute and tons of Workspace\* stuff it is not mergeable at all)
Question:
Is there some way to automatically syncronize Eclipse CDT Workspace with project set obtained from source control. Like just press some (hidden?) magic "refresh" button (in special plugin to install or something like that) and all the new projects will be automatically added to the source tree in the Workspace and deleted projects will also disappear automatically, wothout need to use all those "Import" wizards, and withot need to remove deleted projects manually?
May be there is a special "Container" project type in Eclipse to play the same role as *.sln did in Visual Studio or something like that?
May be other options available?... Overall intention is not in replacing *.sln by some Eclipse equivalent but to support similar workflow when bunch of plugin projects is managed as a whole and project set "refresh" to be simple operation that does not require from each person in the team to manually track projects appeared/disappeared in that set.
Have you looked at using CMake to generate the Eclipse project files? You can then import those into an Eclipse workspace.
Its not automatic, but if you create separate CMakeLists.txt files for each part, then you can easily comment the include of that part in the main CMakeLists.txt file and regenerate the project files when you only want to load subset of the project.
https://cmake.org/Wiki/Eclipse_CDT4_Generator
Should you ever want to change back to VS or to another IDE CMake can generate project files for that too.
I've personally only used CMake to generate VS-solutions and Unix make files so I can't vouch for how well this works.
HTH.
On side note, why did management decide that Eclipse should be used instead of Visual Studio? It sounds like a poor decision without factual grounds or impact research prior to the decision being made.
Was it because Eclipse is free? Did they consider what reduced developer productivity costs?
I've done app by c++ . It's serial port programming/win app.
It's got many files and I would like to make an exe file(setup file to install on client's pc) for delivering thru customers.
I did many research and as far as i see i couldnt.
Any way to do that ?
Would be appreciated.
You need to create a setup project and add it to your solution.
EDIT
You may also like to check this and this links.
So after the comments, I'm pretty sure what you really want is to build an installer for your application which will package up your built executables with all it necessary libraries and what not, so that you can deliver a single file to your customers and have them install it.
A basic way is the way a lot of open source/free software projects do it - supply an archive/zip/whatever file that the user downloads and unzips on their own machine. I don't really recommend this way unless your users are all technical.
At a previous company we InnoSetup, which is really nice, easy to learn, and free.
nsis is another option. http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page . It can create windows installers and is script based.
I have been banging my head on a brick wall that seems to be easily worked around for everyone except me.
I want to setup css and js compression using a standard build on Team Foundation Server 2010. Below is what I've tried so far and failed. I am looking for a magic helping hand to guide me into setting this up the way professionals (SO is full of em) believe it should.
http://yuicompressor.codeplex.com/releases/view/46679 (dowload demo using post-build events)
This method looked promising as it did exactly as promised when you build your project in Visual Studio.
My msbuild Post-build command:
$(MSBuildBinPath)\msbuild.exe
"$(ProjectDir)MSBuild\MSBuildSettings.xml"
/p:CssOutputFile="$(TargetDir)..\Content\StylesSheetFinal.css"
/p:JavaScriptOutputFile="$(TargetDir)..\Scripts\JavaScriptFinal.js"
However when the build is run by TFS I get a lot of errors like these:
D:\Builds\3\CKB 2010_Build_CP\Sources\CKB
2010\My.Name.Space\MSBuild\MSBuildSettings.xml (61): Failed
to save the compressed text into the output file [D:\Builds\3\CKB
2010_Build_CP\Binaries..\Content\StylesSheetFinal.css]. Please check
the path/file name and make sure the file isn't magically locked,
read-only, etc..
So clearly the problem is the syntax in the Post-build command that is wrong. But I can't figure out how to make it work for both local and TSF builds.
Update 2011-08-17
As noted by Edward Thompson, I've tried adding a backslash to the path:
$(MSBuildBinPath)\msbuild.exe
"$(ProjectDir)MSBuild\MSBuildSettings.xml"
/p:CssOutputFile="$(TargetDir)\..\Content\styles.min.css"
/p:JavaScriptOutputFile="$(TargetDir)\..\Scripts\scripts.min.js"
And the result is this:
Failed to save the compressed text into the output file
[D:\Builds\3\CKB 2010_Build_CP\Binaries\\..\Content\styles.min.css].
Please check the path/file name and make sure the file isn't magically
locked, read-only, etc..
The problem is the difference in values with which TFS and Visual Studio run the msbuild command.
These are the steps I have taken to get proper YuiCompressor integration with Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010.
In your desired project add a folder named 'MSBuild'
In this folder you should extract the files you download from the YuiCompressor project on CodePlex
Set the properties of these files like this:
Now open the MSBuildSettings.xml file and edit it according to the scripts and css files you want to have compressed. I have uploaded mine on pastebin since pasting it here caused problems with the editor.
Add the following postbuild event to your project. Note that the paths can differ for your environment.
IF "$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)"=="" $(MSBuildBinPath)\msbuild.exe
"$(ProjectDir)MSBuild\MSBuildSettings.xml"
/p:CssOutputFile="$(TargetDir)_PublishedWebsites\$(ProjectName)\Content\styles.min.css"
/p:JavaScriptOutputFile="$(TargetDir)_PublishedWebsites\$(ProjectName)\Scripts\scripts.min.js"
IF "$(BuildingInsideVisualStudio)"=="true"
$(MSBuildBinPath)\msbuild.exe
"$(ProjectDir)MSBuild\MSBuildSettings.xml"
/p:CssOutputFile="$(TargetDir)..\Content\styles.min.css"
/p:JavaScriptOutputFile="$(TargetDir)..\Scripts\scripts.min.js"
Build the project and see if the files where created as expected.
Perform a check-in and watch the tfs build create the compressed files for you.
For debugging the tfs build, you'll find the logs in the msbuild log which is linked inside the normal tfsbuild log.
I hope this helps someone out there. I couldn't find a decent guide anywhere so now there is one here! If you have other suggestions, feel free to add them or post them in the comments.
One thing that sticks out at me is that you're using $(TargetDir)..\ - which expands to \Binaries..\. I suspect that you don't have a Binaries.. directory, and that this is supposed to be \$(TargetDir)\..\. (Ie, the parent of the Binaries directory.)
Is it possible to combine the following properties, and if so, how?
Store in our version control system some Visual Studio 2008 native C++ (VCPROJ) project files for the developers in our team that use this IDE.
Allow some of those developers to tweak their projects (e.g. using debug version of third-party libraries instead of the usual ones).
Make sure these modifications are done in files that are not versioned.
In other words, I would like to allow developers to tweak some settings in their projects without risking that these changes are committed.
An 'optional VSPROP' file approach seems doomed to fail, as VS2008 refuses to load projects that refer to non-existent VSPROP files...
Any other suggestion? Is this possible with VS2010?
You may not be able to do this but using a solution that generates the vcproj like CMake for example would let you do this. Scripts all your project with CMake and literally conditionally include a config file(if present for example) that developers can change on their setup.
Branches could solve this problem: you create a branch, play with different versions of third-party, merge changes to trunk if results are good.
Well, as a preliminary solution you could put the project file into something like .hgignore or .gitignore after its initial commit.
This way changes to it can't be done accidentally.
At least that's how I handle .hgignore itself.
We use a versionned "common_configuration" folder, and a script which copies project files from this "common_configuration" folder towards the "project" folder.
We have another script to copy the configuration backwards, so the developpers need to make a conscious action to commit their local changes to the global version control system.
It answers partly your needs :
The upside : we have a way to keep a common configuration for everyone, and no accidental committing of local configuration
The downside : blindly copying the files actually crushes local changes. We live with it. We could write some more clever merger tool (using diff, or xml specific manipulations), but don't want to spend to much time on supporting the deployment tools.