Tag: nant

Automated Deployment for Clarify Example

January 11, 2012 Last year I posted about automated deployments for Clarify. From that post: Doing automatic deployments of Clarify changes is pretty straightforward. If I was starting off, I would use a contemporary build script tool such as nant or rake, and simply have it call out to your schema editing tool (Dovetail SchemaEditor, or ddcomp) to perform schema changes, use an import tool (such as Dovetail ArchiveManager, or dataex) for importing forms, and then compile your Clearbasic code using CBEX, or just import it as a DAT file using Dovetail ArchiveManager. File copying, registering components, configuring web servers, and setting permissions are all common tasks that are available in these build tools as well. Should you also need to do additional stuff in your database, some code that uses the Dovetail SDK can be useful. You could tie this…

Automated Deployments for Clarify

March 7, 2011 I had an inquiry this week asking about our experience with automatic deployments for Clarify – specifically around deploying ClearBasic code and schema changes. So I jotted down a few rambling thoughts that might be useful to others. Most of this stuff is pretty standard for software development shops, but not as common in enterprise internal IT organizations. (But it should be!) At Dovetail, we have lots of experience in automated deployment. Let me lay out some of our experience and tools and scenarios. Obviously, one of the big benefits of automation is that repeatable work can be moved from a manual to an automated strategy, and by reducing the manual components, we can eliminate the human error factors, while also improving productivity and increasing employee happiness. Customization Replicator Years ago, we created a product called Customization Replicator (CR). …

Correcting a MIDL compiler error – MIDL1001 : cannot open input file

March 22, 2010 This post is for me or for any of the poor souls out there still doing COM development and using the MIDL compiler in anger. Every now and again I need to get our build automation working with the MIDL compiler and it always seems to be related to some sort of path issue. I ran into this again today on my new development machine and in frustration am creating this post so I can remind myself what I did to fix it. midl : command line error MIDL1001 : cannot open input file oaidl.idl We have a step in our build automation where we generate a type library using midl.exe. Usually when you are using the Visual Studio Command Prompt (vcvars32.bat) this will work fine but something seems to have gone wrong with this on my Windows 7 development machine on which…

A few of my common utilities

March 20, 2008 Whenever I have to do something more than a few times, I like to make a shortcut or a utility for it. I have all of these in my c:\bin directory, and I have my system path set to include c:\bin. These utilities mean that I don't have to think about a lot of heavy syntax most of the time. For example, to import a DAT file into my database, rather than using: c:\bin\diet.exe -license MyDietLicenseKey -user_name sa -password sa -db_server . -db_name dovetail -import file.dat -sqllog sql.log I just have to use: import dovetail file.dat Much easier to remember, and much easier and quicker to type. Most of these are geared towards running on my development system, which is primarily SQL Server running onlocalhost with an sa password of sa. Here's a few common…

Snackbyte: Implementation services should include source-code control

November 15, 2007 This is just a little snackbyte that I was thinking about today: Implementation services should include source-code control. Meaning, when a vendor helps a customer with implementation of the vendors product, part of the service should include source-code control. Not maybe. Not an extra cost. It's just part of the deal. Our implementations include custom web pages, config files, schema change files, dat files, etc. These should all be under version control. If the customer has an existing source code control system, great - use it. If not, put one in place. Subversion is free, is easy to use, and works great. Show the customer the value and ease of using a good source code control product. Just another way to add value to the customer. And when everyone starts doing this - take it to the next level. How…

Intellisense for editing NAnt build scripts

October 29, 2007 This post is inspired by a thread on the Alt.Net yahoo group complaining that authoring NAnt build scripts is a pain. I agree to a point but until a better build system is ready I want to help fellow NAnt disciples by sharing one of my favorite tricks for boosting NAnt scripting productivity. This is a quick guide on getting Intellisense working for NAnt under VS.Net 2005 and better yet some automation to do it for you. The basics Included with each NAnt release is a schema file that includes all the legal elements and attributes annotated with documentation on how to use them. After copying this file into your VS.Net XML schemas directory you get Intellisense when editing XML files with appropriate the NAnt namespace declared (the NAnt FAQ). Automate it While you could look for the schema file and…