Question

I want to set up a parameterized build in Hudson that only takes one parameter — the type of build to create (QA, Stage, Production). However, each of those builds requires several different environment variables to be set. Something like (pseudocode):

if ${CONFIG} == "QA" then
    ${SVN_PATH} = "branches/dev"
    ${BUILD_CONFIG} = "Debug"
    # more environment variables...
else if ${CONFIG} == "Production" then
    ${SVN_PATH} = "trunk"
    ${BUILD_CONFIG} = "Release"
    # more environment variables...
else # more build configurations...
end if

There are myriad steps in our build — pull from subversion, then run a combination of MSBuild commands, DOS Batch files, and Powershell scripts.

We typically schedule our builds from the Hudson interface, and I want the parameter entry to be as idiot-proof as possible.

Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

Since you do so many things for a release, how about scripting all the steps outside of Hudson. you can use ant, batch files, or whatever scripting language you prefer. Put that script in your scm to get the revision control.

pro’s:

• you get the logic out of Hudson, since Hudson only calls the script.
• You don’t need to create environment variables that need to get persisted between shells (global variables).
• you can use config/properties files for every environment, which you should also put into version control
• you can run these scripts outside of Hudson, if you need to
• Hudson job config get’s way easier
• you don’t have the side effects of changing the global environment variables. You should always try to create jobs that don’t change any global settings, because that always calls for trouble.