> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
> Behalf Of Ross Gardler
> Sent: Tuesday, 9 June 2009 5:54 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Report Time
> 

<snip>

> I would also suggest that the project should focus on encouraging
> Apache projects to use the tool, perhaps a Gump style build and report
> mechanism should be a focus for the current team. This will raise
> awareness of the utility of RAT.

Some of you may be aware that I am working on the Buildbot at Apache
instance. RAT itself is tested on there every time a commit happens, along
with a few other projects. Still early days yet but there are plenty of
projects out there not using a CI tool, or not using one at Apache, so I'll
be contacting them, and/or blogging about it whatever, to get more projects
to take advantage of its many abilities.

One such ability, which I have implemented over the last few days, is to
make use of RAT. As RAT is already there being built, I decided to automate
the use of the jar produced from the build. Now, projects can utilise
Buildbot to include RAT testing on their source/binaries/etc. I'd also like
to extend that out further - even projects that don't need Buildbot for
anything else, can use it purely for the convenience of automatically having
RAT reports produced for them, and all are welcome to do so.

RAT reports can be displayed (currently) as txt files on the ASF Buildbot
website, they can be emailed (though not currently enabled as a fine balance
needs to be achieved considering per commit triggers). They can also be
produced on demand via IRC if they want.

This is both useful to RAT as well as the projects using it - as RAT project
can implement new features or fixes based on the results/feedback from the
projects using it - one commit later to svn and within a minute all projects
are immediately using the new version of RAT.

Buildbot itself has many other features and capabilities not yet
implemented/realised (Nexus is next on my hit list, as well as a place to
put release candidates (as most folk usually upload that stuff to
people.apache.org/~username)). 

My hope here is with integration of RAT is that it can raise the profile of
both RAT and Buildbot within the Apache community. I'm not sure Ross what
you had in mind for increased awareness but I hope this is an option we can
explore.

We can talk about ideas on best/different implementation ideas if folks
agree it is a good idea.

So, I'll show you what it does so far.

http://ci.apache.org/buildbot.html

Above is the main Buildbot index page, linking to amongst other things, RAT
reports page from projects configured to produce them

http://ci.apache.org/waterfall

Above page shows a list of projects currently using Buildbot (a few are
there purely for my testing)

A few of those projects I have configured the builds to upload
websites/documentation/javadoc/Apis - and also RAT reports for a few.

http://ci.apache.org/projects/

This page is generated once per hour. It scans the master Buildbot server
for any uploaded website/docs/rat-reports and creates links to them. I did
it this way so now the page is self-maintaining.

Two of the projects there, Buildr and Forrest, don't actually use Buildbot
for anything else, just showing that it is quite alright for projects to use
it for RAT reports only. In these 2 cases, from (commit to) checkout of
source (which is clobbered every time) to the RAT report being available on
the web; was about 30 seconds.

The content of all those RAT reports I'd like to verify, and sometime soon
ensure that I am indeed producing these reports correctly. Some tweaking
will need to be done.

One major thing I'd to work on soon -- and I'd like help with if anyone has
time (if not it will just take longer I guess) is to make use of the XML
output and so create an xslt to produce nice readable HTML reports to go on
the site. Do we have a DTD? Do we need one? Is the current XML output
suitable or will it need tweaking? Has any of this been done already? This
stuff I can find out soon.

One last thing I though of, I'm sure we can gather info from these reports
and send it to wherever Clutch needs it in order to implement that extra
line on clutch you mentioned Ross.

Anyway, what a long email, I'll go now.

Thoughts, ideas for expansion, ideas on current implementation?

Thanks all.

Gav...

> 
> On one of my non-ASF projects I use RAT in my CI server to tell me
> when someone commits a file that breaks the RAT checks. This is really
> useful.
> 
> Ross
> 
> --
> Ross Gardler
> 


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