Question

I am maintaining the source control for my organization and I want to run some automated tests on every checkin before it reaches the central store. Which means that when users submit their changes, I will build all the code and start the test suites.

What do I need to setup for this – assuming I have perforce as my source control?

This should be a very common problem but I probably not have the right vocabulary.

Answer 1

I assume you’re using Perforce from your tags. There are a couple of ways you could do this:

1. Using branches – have the developers check into a “test” branch and make Jenkins monitor that branch for changes to build your code and run tests. You can then integrate the test code into a separate “main” branch for everyone else to pull from.
2. If you have a recent version of Perforce, you can use the shelving feature. Have the developers create shelved changelists and get Jenkins to unshelve the changes to build and run the tests. If the tests pass, the changelist can be submitted to the central depot.

We use option 2 at my work, so I can give you more details if needed – just post a comment back here.