Windows CE: Development tools considerations part V

Hi all,

let’s go right to answering the 4th question:

Question:
I want to start a daily automated build hence the IDE is not desirable. Is it possible to have the developers use the IDE and yet start an automated build without starting the IDE?

Answer:
YES it is possible to start an automated build without starting the IDE and here is how:
Well we already learned that we need to use a special command line which can be opened from the PlatformBuilder IDE with the help of wince.bat to build our system. There is, however another cool tool that comes with PlatformBuilder called pbxmlutils.exe. All it needs is your .pbxml file as input to set up a command line to build your system without the need to start the PlatformBuilder IDE. Of course PlatformBuilder and the WINCE tree still need to be installed on your build PC. But as you can see with pbxmlutils.exe you can write a script which

1. Gets all files from your version control tool into a clean WINCE tree


2. Sets up a build environment for you with the help of pbxmlutils.exe with all your specific project settings which are defined in the .pbxm file


3. builds your system


4. saves the build logs and generated files

Lastly, let me share one more consideration with you. As we learned in yesterdays post, we should only change code in our BSP. To make sure that no code was changed in the Private directory, simply don’t install PlatformBuilders shared source option on your daily build machine.

Stay tuned for tomorrows last edition of our little series…

Have fun!