Why not just use windows scheduler to run the .build every 20 minutes or whatever. This is actually what we are doing now (poor mans continuous integration). Although we are working on setting up CC.Net to do this correctly.
BOb -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Lambrou Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 3:39 AM To: Peter Lanoie Cc: nant-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [NAnt-users] Conditional looping within a NAnt script (is therea while' task?) Peter, Thanks for replying. One of the reasons I wanted a looping task was that I wanted to repeat the execution of a continuous build process until a fixed time (say 8 o'clock in the evening). In the end, I resorted to using a custom script task as follows: <script language="C#"> <code><![CDATA[ public static void ScriptMain(Project project) { do { project.Execute("continuous-repeat-body"); } while (DateTime.Now.Hour < 20); } ]]></code> </script> It would have been much nicer to have a dowhile (or while) task, like this: <dowhile test="${datetime::get-hour(datetime::now()) < 20}"> <call target="continuous-repeat-body"/> </script> To be honest, once I had the script working, I had other more pressing matters to attend to, so haven't really returned to the problem of implementing a looping task. I hope to return to the script at some point in the next few weeks, so if you're about to have a go at implementing a looping task shortly, I'd be very pleased to know how it turns out. I think it would be far more useful to be able to specify an expression for the loop condition, rather than a simple property. Especially for a while task, where you don't want to have to execute the body of the task in order to define the condition property (thus making the task a dowhile task). Of course, we could resort to something along the following lines, where the <pretest/> section is executed immediately before the evaluation of the test condition: <while test="loop-condition"> <pretest> ... [tasks required to determine the loop condition] ... <property name="loop-condition" value="[some_expression]"/> </pretest> <do> ... [main loop body] ... </do> </while> A <dowhile/> task would have the same syntax, but the <pretest/> section would be evaluated after the <do/> section. This is beginning to approach the clumsyness of my original <script/> task workaround, but I can see how it would be useful if evaluating the loop condition required some complex operation that couldn't be carried out by a single expression alone. I found that the tricky part was being able to assign an expression to the task attribute and not have it evaluated immediately (like a property) but have the evaluation deferred until the task body executes, so that it can be repeatedly evaluated as part of the loop condition. Nant's built in expression syntax makes it far more like a real, useful scripting language than Ant (expressions defined using XML logic and condition elements is just painful to use and is very inflexible), but I think it's a shame that looping constructs aren't available in either NAnt or NAntContrib - ah well... Chris P.S. More random thoughts entering my head - how about a <break/> or a <continue/> task directive that can be embedded in the loop body? -----Original Message----- From: Peter Lanoie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 12 October 2006 22:17 To: Chris Lambrou Subject: [NAnt-users] Conditional looping within a NAnt script (is there a while' task?) Chris, Don't know if you ever solved this or not, but I was looking for the same thing. I think what you would want to do is change it so that instead of deriving from the IF task and using its "ConditionsTrue" variable you should derive from TaskContainer. Then add a property name as the property to test each time the while loops. The ExecuteTask code can check that property value internally so it always gets fresh data. <while property="myWhileLoopTestProp"> ...[other tasks]... </while> private string _strProp; [TaskAttribute("property", Required=true)] public string Property { get { return _strProp; } set { _strProp = value; if (Properties.IsReadOnlyProperty(_strProp)) { throw new BuildException("Property is readonly! :" + _strProp, Location); } } } [TaskName("while")] public class WhileTask : TaskContainer { protected override void ExecuteTask() { //while test will continually test the live value of the property while (Properties[_strProp]) { base.ExecuteTask(); } } } I'll venture a guess that 'ConditionsTrue' might be something you'd want to put an expression into instead of just a property value. In that case you can still use what I suggested, you just have to put the expression in the value attribute of a standard property tag inside the while tasks inner tasks. <while property="myWhileLoopTestProp"> ...[other tasks]... <property name="myWhileLoopTestProp" value="[nant expression to set property]" /> </while> Let me know what you ended up doing or if this works for you. I'm going to be implementing it tomorrow myself. Peter ------------------------------------------------------------------------ - Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ NAnt-users mailing list NAnt-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Using Tomcat but need to do more? Need to support web services, security? Get stuff done quickly with pre-integrated technology to make your job easier Download IBM WebSphere Application Server v.1.0.1 based on Apache Geronimo http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=120709&bid=263057&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ NAnt-users mailing list NAnt-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-users
