Rubicant basically has 4 main parts, as mentioned in the first part of this series. They are as follows:

The CscTask

The CscTask is used for compiling C# files. It’s usage is like:

   1: CscTask.new(:task_name => :dependencies) do |csc|

   2:   csc.target = 'library'

   3:   csc.references = FileList["libs\*.dll"]

   4:   csc.out = "hello_world.exe"

   5:   csc.debug = "full"

   6:   csc.files = FileList["src/**/*.cs"]

   7: end

target: Any target that the csc compiler takes (exe, winexe, library, etc)

references: The list of assemblies that are referenced during compilation

out: The output filename

debug: if this is set(to anything), the compiler will be passed /debug:full to create debugging information

files: The list of files to be compiled

CscTask also has a shortcut that can be accessed as follows:

   1: csc(name, dependencies, opts)

   2:  

   3: ex:

   4: csc :name, [:dependencies], { :target => 'library',

   5:                               :references = FileList["libs\*.dll"],

   6:                               :out = "hello_world.exe",

   7:                               :debug = "full",

   8:                               :files = FileList["src/**/*.cs"] }

The MBUnit Helper

The MBUnit helper is used to run tests using mbunit v2. It is used as follows:

   1: mbunit(mbunit_dir, test_dir, test_files, opts={})

   2:  

   3: ex:

   4: mbunit("/path/to/mbunit/dlls",

   5:         FileList["/test/dlls/test.dll"],

   6:         {:working_dir => "/dir/to/run/tests/in",

   7:          :assembly_path => FileList["/assemblies/to/include/*.dll"],

   8:          :report_folder => "sets /rf:",

   9:          :report_name_format => "sets /rnf:",

  10:          :report_type => "sets /rt:",

  11:          :show_reports => "sets /sr:",

  12:          :transform => "sets /tr:",

  13:          :filter_category => "sets /fc:",

  14:          :exclude_category => "sets /ec:",

  15:          :filter_author => "sets /fa:",

  16:          :filter_type => "sets /ft:",

  17:          :filter_namespace => "sets /fn:",

  18:          :verbose => "sets /v{optionvalue}",

  19:          :shadow_copy => "sets /sc:" }

For a complete listing of the mbunit command line options, please visit http://docs.mbunit.com/help/html/gettingstarted/MbUnitConsoleRunner.htm.

This runs the tests in test_files in the test_dir with the dlls from mbunit_dir using the options in opts. Currently, this will physically copy the minimum required mbunit dlls and mbunit.cons.exe to the test dir, run the tests and then remove the files.

The CopyFiles Task

The copy files task will copy files from one directory to another, while maintaining the folder structure.

   1: CopyFiles.new(:name) do |cf|

   2:   cf.base_dir = "/some/dir"

   3:   cf.file_globs = ["**/somefiles/*.cs", **/otherfiles/*.cs"]

   4:   cf.target_dir = "/another/dir"

   5:   cf.excludes = ["AssemblyInfo.cs"]

   6: end

base_dir: The base directory to start copying files from

file_globs: The globs of files to be copied from base_dir

target_dir: The target directory to place the files in

excludes: (Optional) list of files to be excluded from the copy.

The Expand Template File Task

Usage is:

   1: expand_template(template, output_file)

This will read in the file specified by template and expand it out and write it to the location of output_file.

WARNING: I am fairly certain that the only reason this is working right now for me is because I use configatron, which is accessed as a singleton. It is entirely possible that variables declared in your build script will not be accessible during template expansion. I will be testing this in the near future, however.

Framework Selection

Currently, only the .Net 2.0 and .Net 3.5 frameworks are configured. .Net 3.5 is the selection by default. However, you can choose which framework you want to use by adding framework={framework} in the build line. For example:

   1: rake deploy_local framework=net20

This will run the deploy_local task in the default rakefile using the .Net 2.0 framework.

Valid framework values are:

net20 – .Net 2.0

net35 - .Net 3.5

These frameworks are discovered using the registry, so you shouldn’t have to put in the location of your csc.exe file.

What else?

Well, that’s about all it really does right now. The rest is just built in rake and ruby goodness. I would like to add msbuild support for those that are building WPF apps. I would also like to add some nunit support, as well as some support for other things like easy creation of assemblyinfo.cs files and possibly some deployment tasks for iis7. Who knows. We’ll see how I like things and if I really take to using this (I think I will).

Alright, so here is a sample build script for rubicant. First you will have to get rubicant installed. To do that, you need to get the source from https://rubicant.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/. I believe the username is rubicant-read-only.

In the root directory type:

   1: E:\projects\rubicant>rake gem

   2: (in E:/projects/rubicant)

   3: c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.3/lib/rake/gempackagetask.rb:13:Warning:

   4:  Gem::manage_gems is deprecated and will be removed on or after March 2009.

   5: mkdir -p pkg

   6: WARNING:  no rubyforge_project specified

   7: WARNING:  RDoc will not be generated (has_rdoc == false)

   8: WARNING:  deprecated autorequire specified

   9:   Successfully built RubyGem

  10:   Name: Rubicant

  11:   Version: 0.0.1

  12:   File: Rubicant-0.0.1.gem

  13: mv Rubicant-0.0.1.gem pkg/Rubicant-0.0.1.gem

  14:  

  15: E:\projects\rubicant>

Now you’ve got the gem built, you just need to install it:

   1: E:\projects\rubicant>gem install pkg\Rubicant-0.0.1.gem

   2: Successfully installed Rubicant-0.0.1

   3: 1 gem installed

   4:  

   5: E:\projects\rubicant>

There. Now for a test application. Suppose we’ve got 3 projects that make up a console app. The UI, the Engine (I KNOW) and the Tests. They look like:

For now, let’s ignore the internal workings and focus on building it.

The build script looks like this:

   1: require 'rubicant'

   2: require 'configatron'

   3: include Rubicant

   4:  

   5: BASE_DIR = File.expand_path(".")

   6: SRC_DIR = "#{BASE_DIR}/src"

   7: SRC_APP_DIR = "#{SRC_DIR}/app"

   8: SRC_TEST_DIR = "#{SRC_DIR}/test"

   9: CONFIG_DIR = "#{BASE_DIR}/config"

  10: BUILD_DIR = "#{BASE_DIR}/build"

  11: DEPLOY_DIR = "#{BASE_DIR}/deploy"

  12: TOOLS_DIR = "#{BASE_DIR}/tools"

  13: MBUNIT_DIR = "#{TOOLS_DIR}/mbunit"

  14: RHINO_DIR = "#{TOOLS_DIR}/rhino"

  15:  

  16: UI_SOURCES = FileList["#{SRC_APP_DIR}/Rubicant.Test.App.UI/**/*.cs"]

  17: ENGINE_SOURCES = FileList["#{SRC_APP_DIR}/Rubicant.Test.App.Engine/**/*.cs"]

  18: TEST_SOURCES = FileList["#{SRC_TEST_DIR}/**/*.cs"]

  19:  

  20: #### Build Initialization

  21: task :initialize_build do

  22:     rm_rf BUILD_DIR if File.exists?(BUILD_DIR)

  23:     mkdir_p BUILD_DIR

  24:     rm_rf DEPLOY_DIR if File.exists?(DEPLOY_DIR)

  25:     mkdir_p DEPLOY_DIR

  26: end

  27:  

  28: #### Loading Properties

  29: task :load_local_properties do

  30:     configatron.configure_from_yaml("local.properties.yml")

  31: end

  32:  

  33: task :load_test_properties do

  34:     configatron.configure_from_yaml("test.properties.yml")

  35: end

  36:  

  37: #### Deployment Targets

  38: task :deploy_local => [:load_local_properties, :deploy]

  39:  

  40: task :deploy_test => [:load_test_properties, :deploy]

  41:  

  42: task :deploy => [:test, :expand_app_config] do

  43:     cp FileList["#{BUILD_DIR}/{hello.exe,engine.dll}"], DEPLOY_DIR

  44: end

  45:  

  46:  

  47: #### Compile Targets

  48: csc :compile, [:initialize_build, :compile_engine], {:files => UI_SOURCES,

  49:                                                      :target => "exe",

  50:                                                      :out => "#{BUILD_DIR}/hello.exe",

  51:                                                      :references => FileList["#{BUILD_DIR}/*.dll"] }

  52:                 

  53: csc :compile_engine, [], {:files => ENGINE_SOURCES,

  54:                           :target => "library",

  55:                           :out => "#{BUILD_DIR}/engine.dll"}

  56:                 

  57: #### Testing Targets                

  58: task :test => [:compile_tests, :run_tests]

  59:  

  60: csc :compile_tests, [:compile], {:files => TEST_SOURCES,

  61:                                           :target => "library",

  62:                                           :out => "#{BUILD_DIR}/tests.dll",

  63:                                           :references => FileList["#{BUILD_DIR}/**/*.{dll,exe}", "#{RHINO_DIR}/*.dll", "#{MBUNIT_DIR}/*.dll"]}

  64:  

  65: task :run_tests do

  66:     mbunit(MBUNIT_DIR, BUILD_DIR, FileList["#{BUILD_DIR}/tests.dll"], {:assembly_path => FileList["#{BUILD_DIR}/engine.dll", "#{RHINO_DIR}/*.dll"].to_a})

  67: end

  68:  

  69:  

  70: #### App.config expansion

  71: task :expand_app_config do

  72:     expand_template "#{CONFIG_DIR}/App.Config.template", "#{DEPLOY_DIR}/hello.exe.config"

  73: end

The point of this build file is to be able to churn out two different builds based on two different sets of properties. This is based off of my builds that I do at work where we need to deploy and test in a test environment before going into production. It would be as simple as adding a production.properties.yml and a deploy_production target to simulate this fully in this script.

So basically, we call deploy_test (or deploy_local), which in turn loads the test properties, and then the deploy task.

Deploy calls the test task, which builds the app, builds the tests, runs the tests. If any tests fail, the build will fail here, making sure we don’t deploy any code that doesn’t pass tests.

Finally, we expand our app.config in a way suitable for the environment we’re going into.

Finally, run the executable to see that it worked!

   1: E:\projects\Rubicant.Test.App>deploy\hello.exe

   2: Hello, World! (Test Version)

   3:  

   4: E:\projects\Rubicant.Test.App>

You can download the source from http://blog.beigesunshine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/rubicanttestapp.zip and try it out for yourself. The default rakefile goes to an exe and an assembly. You can also run both deploy_local and deploy_test and create a single exe file by using rake -f rakefile_single_exe.rb deploy_local.

Coming up, a post on some of the specifics of rubicant.

In previous posts I have mentioned that I think that there might be a better way to automate builds than NAnt. I also mentioned that I had looked at a few of them and been mostly underwhelmed. I’ve spent a large amount of time building a process for builds that works well for me and none of them seemed to erase my pains.

I also mentioned that I would be working on some items that may even drive some content to this blog, among other things. Today, I introduce the fruits of my labour.

Please note that this is NOT recommended for any sort of production environment. It is currently at best a way to try out Rake on .Net projects.

What is rubicant?

rubicant is my own personal set of tasks that sit on top of rake, a rubyish interpretation of make. I’ve used ruby for some scripting in the past, and also used rake in a rails app that I developed. I felt that the combination of both would alleviate some of the pains that I (and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here) feel when I use NAnt.

I was admittedly scared to even try building my own set of tasks, and actually didn’t even know where to start. I kept rolling the idea around. One day I was going to start doing it now. Then the next I wasn’t. As a father of young children my spare time is very limited and very few and far between, especially for something that would demand so much of it.

And then the I started coming across others experimenting with exactly what I was talking about. First it was a post by Dave Laribee, as well as another post in his comments. And now as I read over them again, I’m seeing that there’s more people feeling like I do. I started to google and found some great posts by Jay Fields and to a lesser extent one by Martin Fowler.

Anyway, in my looking it seemed like no one had actually put out a reusable library that anyone could just pick up and automatically compile a project within 5 minutes.

And thus, with some much needed inspiration from the above sources, rubicant was born.

What isn’t rubicant?

Well written for one thing. Take a look at my tests and they’re enough to make someone blow a gasket (I kid, I LOVE his twitter rants) I started writing them thinking I knew what I was doing and let me clear something up for you. At the time, I had a greatly misguided view on BDD/Specification testing. Either way, it’s still got my code covered and has helped to drive out some of the design, especially when loading framework information.

Another thing it is not is a complete solution. I had 4 goals in functionality that I wanted. They were:

1. Build C# code
2. Test C# code (with MBUnit)
3. Copy selected files in a meaningful hierarchy
4. Template expansion using configatron to allow for easy configuration swapping.

Why rubicant?

First off, automated builds are the only thing that I feel I truly have a grasp on. I feel comfortable enough in myself and my process that I could come up with something useful. I don’t think of myself as a guru, but I do know that I have a set of build scripts at work that are robust and involved while trying to stay (somewhat simple). In other words, I don’t consider myself a guru, but I do feel I have a grasp on the subject.

I was also feeling too much pain with NAnt. As well, I didn’t feel that any of the other solutions out there really felt like what I was looking for. I was also looking for a learning project in ruby. I wanted to try driving out a design via testing using ruby. A lot of things. Either way, I felt like I wanted to do something for myself, but that also might provide some sort of benefit to the community, even if it just ended up as a failed attempt. In a sentence: I wanted to try and provide SOMETHING back to a community that I feel has given me so much.

Even if this ends in failure, it’s been exactly the experience that I’ve wanted thus far, and though I’m sure I’m in for some rough waters ahead, I think that it will continue to drive me to learn, improve and better myself. Okay, so there is definitely some selfishness there, but hopefully you can forgive me in the name of Continuous Improvement, even if it’s my own.

How do I get it? How do I use it?

Well, if you want to get it, you can go to the project site on google code and download the source. There are instructions there on how to install it. As for how to use it… stay tuned for a sample project and build file. Hopefully very soon.

Update: Don’t forget to check out Part 2 and Part 3.

Let me get this off my chest. I think about Build Scripts all the time. I spent the better part of the first 6 months at my current job migrating old legacy .Net 1.1 web apps from  CVS to .Net 2.0 and Subversion. Part of that included migrating the projects from CVS to SVN, then taking the old projects and migrating those into our current directory structure for projects. After that, I had to template the config files and create build scripts that could build a local, test or production version of an app with a single command.

During the course of this, I used PowerShell, Ruby and of course, NAnt.

I found that, like many things, I was able to find some things I loved about all of them. And lots of things I hated about most of them. PowerShell, for one, has some great ideas in it. It’s truly a good idea. I love the idea of being able to leverage the .Net Framework from my scripts. It really is a good idea. But after the few scripts that I wrote in PowerShell, I don’t think that I could use it again. I found the syntax either annoying or clunky the whole time. Especially once I started writing the scripts in Ruby.

Now Ruby I have some experience in as I’ve done a bit of Rails development. Lots of the notations I like. I have some difficulty in using a dynamic language at times, most notably I find myself missing method signatures that are strongly typed. However, the annoyances are small, and mostly come in the form of me running into issues with working with the file system. I think those annoyances mostly come from me not fully understanding some of the intricacies of working with the filesystem on windows with ruby.

I find the biggest difference between the two is how easy it is to use Ruby from within a CygWin Bash shell. I’ve been a longtime linux user, and actually my first unix-like operating system that I used at home was FreeBSD. Because of FreeBSD, I was a long time user of tcsh. In fact, it was less than a year ago that I finally made the move over to bash. Either way, both of these shells provide power, ease of use and so many advantages that I can’t believe that Microsoft doesn’t have them in any of it’s shells. I mean seriously, how does anyone live without a searchable history in a command prompt?

And this brings us to NAnt. I was in love with NAnt when I first started. It was great to use, simple and it could do so much. But I started to find myself hitting situations where things would become very murky and difficult to keep track of where things were happening, especially when I tried to make things generic so they could be called in many places. For example, here is how a template file is expanded in our code:

   1: <target name="expand.template.file">

   2:     <copy file="${template.file}.template" tofile="${template.file}" overwrite="true">

   3:         <filterchain>

   4:             <replacetokens>

   5:                 ....lots of tokens...

   6:             </replacetokens>

   7:         </filterchain>

   8:     </copy>

   9: </target>

But where does ${template.file} get set? Why, the line before we call expand.template.file of course!

   1: <property name="template.file" value="${some.dir}\app.config"/>

   2: <call target="expand.template.file" />

I just find that this can be confusing, especially to newcomers who don’t know which targets act as functions. I know that you could do a search through the code and find it, but it’s just not as clean or explicit as something like:

   1: expandTemplate(filename)

   2:  

   3: def expandTemplate(filename)

   4:     ...expand in here...

   5: end

So I think that you can see where I’m going with this. After a while of doing this, I started to think a lot about Rake. After all, I had used it in Rails projects previously. As you can tell, I’m quite a fan of Ruby. After a while, things began to cool off. I had gotten almost all of our projects converted and I wasn’t writing build files as much anymore. But I kept on thinking about it. Recently, I’ve been writing build files again. I’ve also been reading that I’m not the only person who feels this way.

I’ve noticed a few projects that seem to be reaching for what I want. There’s Boo Build System (and yes, it is shortened to BooBS. Nice work Ayende), PSake (which JP seems to have picked up) and then there’s Rake. Rake seems to be the only one that isn’t geared towards some sort of .Net problem (not that it can’t). It turns out that though there was a lot of hype around boo a while back, I just don’t think it’s something I’m up for learning just yet. And as for PSake, I downloaded the source and nothing against James (it’s not his fault, it’s the syntax!) I barely made it through the first PS1 file before my head hurt and I remembered why I stopped writing PowerShell scripts in the first place.

That leaves me with Rake. And it seems like I’m not the only one. The only difference is that I would absolutely love to see a Gem built with some custom .Net tasks for rake. This is something that I’ve been seriously contemplating putting some time into, but haven’t fully explored yet. Most notably, I would like to take the syntax of:

   1: require 'lib/nunittask'

   2:  

   3: Rake::NUnit.new do |nunit|

   4:   nunit.library = "foo.dll"

   5: end

And replace it with something along the lines of:

   1: require 'lib/nunittask'

   2:  

   3: nunit :test, :library => 'foo.dll', :depends => [:load_properties, :compile]

I get the feeling that this could be wrapped up in a function which could use Hash which could hide away the nastiness of Rake::Task.new do |task| block and take these scripts to an entirely new level. I’m not entirely sure how the naming would work, but I’m sure it would.

After writing this, I think I’m going to start taking a much closer look. Has anyone heard of anything like this in the works/already released?