{"id":2861,"date":"2019-09-09T10:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T22:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/?p=2861"},"modified":"2019-09-22T09:59:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T21:59:44","slug":"azure-devops-building-some-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deltics.co.nz\/blog\/posts\/2861\/","title":{"rendered":"Azure DevOps – Building Some Code"},"content":{"rendered":"[Estimated Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes]<\/span><\/span>\n

After the previous post<\/a> we should have ourselves a build agent with everything we need to perform command line builds of Delphi code. But let’s make sure!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The first thing we need is some code, so we’ll need a git repository in Azure DevOps. Before we can get to that though, we need a Project<\/strong>. In Azure DevOps, a project is a container for any number of repositories you may wish but also backlogs for managing work items relating to those repositories and much else besides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Projects may be private<\/strong> or public<\/strong> and which you choose depends on your collaboration model. Private repositories can still be used collaboratively but people need to be invited to join those projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it is not the aim of these posts to get into the details of Azure DevOps (maybe another time), so for our purposes we’ll create a private Hello Delphi<\/strong> project:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once created (it takes a few seconds) we can navigate to the project and its repositories. Initially there is a single, default repository (named for the project) but it contains no code at this point. The quickest and simplest way to get something into that repo is to add a README.MD<\/strong> and .gitignore<\/strong> directly from the Azure DevOps UI:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here we do<\/span> find some awareness of Delphi as a default .gitignore<\/strong> file is available! \\o\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once we’ve initialised the repo we are presented with the contents of that repo (the README.MD<\/strong> and .gitignore<\/strong> we just created) and can now add additional files. Adding folders is a bit trickier (even though it is offered as an option) because git repos do not track empty folders; to create a folder you actually need to create a file and specify a new path involving the new folder. But that\u2019s not a problem right now as our next step is to create a simple Delphi project (i.e. dpr) to exercise our build agent with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could of course clone the repo to a machine and work there, pushing our changes to the Azure DevOps repo as we go, but everything we need to do for this exercise we can do directly from with Azure DevOps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However you choose to do it, we just need two files:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. HelloDelphi.dpr<\/strong> – a simple Delphi project which we can compile on our build agent<\/li>
  2. build.yml <\/strong>– a YAML build pipeline that describes the build job. (This can actually be named whatever we like)<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    After adding each file you are presented with a file editor to create some initial content for the file before it is committed to the repo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    First, HelloDelphi.dpr<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \/\/ File: Hello Delphi \/ HelloDelphi.dpr\n\n{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}\n\nprogram HelloDelphi;\nbegin\n  WriteLn('Hello Delphi!');\nend.<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    And then build.yml<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    # File: build.yml\n\ntrigger:\n- master\n\npool:\n  name: The Den\n  demands: Delphi.7\n\nsteps:\n- powershell: |\n    c:\\dcc\\7\\bin\\dcc32.exe HelloDelphi.dpr -Uc:\\dcc\\7\\lib -CC\n    if (Test-Path -path HelloDelphi.exe) {\n        .\\HelloDelphi.exe\n    }\n  displayName: Build and run tests (Delphi 7)<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
    Full documentation of the YAML build format<\/a> is beyond the scope of these posts but is available from Microsoft<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    NOTE:<\/strong> YAML can be an infuriating format.  It relies on whitespace and indentation to convey structure and meaning and errors can be very difficult to spot unless using a YAML aware editor, such as the online one provided by Azure DevOps itself.  Even then, an error highlighted in your YAML might be caused by a whitespace problem elsewhere in the file!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
    For my build step I have chosen a powershell<\/strong> script but I could equally have used a simple cmd.exe<\/strong> based script by using - script<\/code> in place of - powershell<\/code> . <\/p>\n\n\n\n
    In addition to the build script itself, there is some additional configuration that tells Azure DevOps how to work with this build:<\/p>\n\n\n\n