NIWeek 2012: Fire and Forget / Bulletproof Builds Using Continuous Integration With LabVIEW

PUSHING THE LIMITS OF LABVIEW

Fire and Forget:Bulletproof Builds Using Continuous Integration With LabVIEW

Omar MussaJKI Senior Engineer & Professional Services Manager

http://xkcd.com/974/


Continuous Integration with LabVIEW

What is Continuous Integration?What is Jenkins?Build Automation ProcessConsiderations for LabVIEW Build Automation

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Continuous Integration In Action

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Image via: pasukaru76 with Creative Commons

FIRE!

Image via: Esparta Palma with Creative Commons

Let’s start with a demo!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/5812682124/


http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/







What is Continuous Integration?

End to end automation of your build and release process...

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About Jenkins

Open Source (Est. ~2007)Many usersMany pluginsSome learning curve but overall easy to useHas GUI

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What Problems Does Jenkins Solve?

Build Triggering (Web Hooks or SCC Polling) Build Execution Order (Build Pipelines, etc) Build History Unit Test History Build Failure Notification

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Poking around in Jenkins

Let’s take a look around ...

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Image via: http://xkcd.com/303/




Build Planning

Q. When do we start making builds of our project?A. As early and often as possible.

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LabVIEW Build Types

Lots of deliverables can be built using LabVIEW

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Package PPL Source Zip

EXE Installer DLL


LabVIEW Build Process

Typical LabVIEW Build and Release Process

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LabVIEW Build Process using CI

Typical CI Server Automated Build Process

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Direct Business Value Benefits

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Voila!

Our demo build server revisited ...

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Basic Build Automation Development

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Image via: http://xkcd.com/303/






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LabVIEW from the Command Line

Easiest way to call LabVIEW Build VIs is via command line!

Use Batch File from CI Software Requires some design considerations

Forcing batch file to wait for build to complete Error handling

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Calling LabVIEW.exe from the command line... LabVIEW can only receive one set of command line

parameters per call LabVIEW must be closed before new build is started [ProgramFiles]LabVIEW.exe “[path to VI]” -- [user

arguments] Build VI must be set to “Run When Opened”

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Use Application Property node to read command line arguments

LabVIEW is ALWAYS the 0th element

Best Practice Pass the build number to your build VI

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When Builds Break ...

Demo of package build server error detection

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Build Design Considerations

Separate project build steps for pipeliningSeparate project build steps for distributing buildsAvoid SCC commits within build workspaces during build process

Only want to trigger builds from developer commits, not from build process itself

Generally means that build number is passed to build process (via Jenkins)

Avoid development on build server itself

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Build Time Considerations

CI Server Impact on Short Build Times Fast feedback to developer isolates debugging Platform for unit test execution

CI Server Impact on Long Build Times Builds are still run ~daily Not ‘stuck’ at end of project with broken build Frees up a lot of developer time that would otherwise be

wasted waiting for builds to execute.

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JKI’s Continuous Build ToolChain

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JKI VI Tester


Questions

Questions?Thank you for participating!

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Need Help?

Let JKI build your CI system.Automated Build VIs

Source Code Control IntegrationUnit Test Design

Cloud-hosted Build ServersJenkins Setup, Integration, and Maintenance

Reliable, Repeatable, Secure.27


Contact Us

jki.net /contact

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NIWeek 2012: Fire and Forget / Bulletproof Builds Using Continuous Integration With LabVIEW

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