Customizing the code of CCNet : part 2 : Creating a publisher

Some stuff you need to know :
Tasks and publishers are the same in ccnet, the only difference is the handling of errors. If a class defined in the tasks section throws an error, the execution of the entire tasks section in the ccnet.config file is stopped. If an error occurs in a class defined in the publisher section, the current publisher will stop, but the next publisher of the publishers section will still be called.

When you open the solution c:\source\ccnet\project\ccnet.sln
you see that there are (for the moment) 10 projects :

CCTray       : The CCTray application
CCTrayLib    : Library for CCTray, here resides all its logic
Console      : The CCtray Console server application
Core         : Here resides the majority of the functionality
Objection    : Code responsible for creating objects (heavy code)
Remote       : Communication layer server
                (communication between cctray/dashboard and a CCNet 
Service      : The CCNet service counterpart of the CCNet console application
UnitTests    : All the unit tests of CCNet
Validator    : A winform application that validates a ccnet.config file
WebDashboard : The Dashboard application

Now, the publishers are part of the Core, so if you expand the core project,
you will see a publishers folder. This holds all the publishers.



For example, we'll be creating a very simple publisher : FilePublisher.
This will create a txt file with the results of a build.
For configuration : it will take the path of the file.

Now, creating this publisher :
° Create a class FilePublisher in the publishers folder
° change .publishers into .Publishers in the namespace
° add using Exortech.NetReflector;
° make the class public

You have now the following :

using System.Collections; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization; using Exortech.NetReflector; namespace ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers { public class FilePublisher : ITask { public void Run(IIntegrationResult result) { throw new System.NotImplementedException(); } } }

For letting the CCNet-system know that this is a publisher/task, the class must
implement the interface ITask. This interface foresees a Run method with an arguement of IIntegrationResult; The argument holds all the information of the current build.
So in fact, writing this publisher is nothing more than :
° opening the defined target file
° write the wanted properties of IIntegrationResult
° close the file
you see, not that hard.

Ok, back to the code. First add the code for the file argument. This is done by
adding a public property, lets say ResultFile. If you want this property to be definable in ccnet.config, you must decorate it with a Reflector attribute, coming from the Exortech.NetReflector namespace.
Also, the class must have such an attribute, to property is passed to the correct class.

using System.Collections; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization; using Exortech.NetReflector; namespace ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers { [ReflectorType("filePublisher")] public class FilePublisher : ITask { private string resultFile = "Result.txt"; [ReflectorProperty("resultFile")] public string ResultFile { get { return resultFile; } set { resultFile = value; } } public void Run(IIntegrationResult result) { throw new System.NotImplementedException(); } } }

All that is left, is the code that actually writes the wanted results to the file.
This results for example in :

using System.Collections; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization; using Exortech.NetReflector; namespace ThoughtWorks.CruiseControl.Core.Publishers { [ReflectorType("filePublisher")] public class FilePublisher : ITask { private string resultFile = "Result.txt"; [ReflectorProperty("resultFile")] public string ResultFile { get { return resultFile; } set { resultFile = value; } } public void Run(IIntegrationResult result) { PublishIt(ResultFile, result); } private void PublishIt(string targetFile, IIntegrationResult result) { StreamWriter Result = new StreamWriter(targetFile, false); System.Text.StringBuilder Info = new System.Text.StringBuilder(); Info.AppendFormat("Project {0} has status {1}", result.ProjectName, result.Status); Info.AppendLine(); Info.AppendFormat("Modifications :"); Info.AppendLine(); foreach (Modification mod in result.Modifications) { Info.AppendFormat(mod.ToString()); Info.AppendLine(); } Result.WriteLine(Info.ToString()); } } }

In ccnet.config, you define it as follows in the publishers section :

<publishers> <filePublisher resultFile="c:\logsresult.txt" /> </publishers>