Introduction to NAnt

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Introduction

Nant is the scripting tool for the Dot Net platform. It is inspired from its java counterpart, <st1:place w:st="on">Ant. <o:p>

NAnt is an open source project, with a homepage at http://nant.sourceforge.net. There<o:p>

are links to many resources from this page. Additionally, there is an adjunct to NAnt called NAntContrib. It has a homepage at http://nantcontrib.sourceforge.net. This project is for task contributions to NAnt that do<o:p>

not make it into the core NAnt release. Occasionally, tasks in NAntContrib will make the<o:p>

switch to NAnt.<o:p>

NAnt Nomenclature<o:p>

Just before we dive in, let us clarify some of the terminology that we will use when discussing<o:p>

NAnt:<o:p>

NAnt: The physical executable (and the associated tasks) that form the application.<o:p>

NAnt script/build script/build file: An XML file describing a project comprised of one or<o:p>

more targets and zero or more properties.<o:p>

Project: The root node of a build script. Each script has one project.<o:p>

Target: A subdivision of a project. A target is a discrete piece of work that can consist of<o:p>

zero or more tasks. Targets can be dependent on each other.<o:p>

Task: A task is a defined activity that NAnt will execute; for example, creating a directory<o:p>

or zipping a file. There are many built-in tasks to NAnt, and we will look at the most valuable<o:p>

of these in Chapter 3.<o:p>

Property: An XML key/value pair that can be used to configure tasks and targets in a<o:p>

more dynamic fashion. Property values can be overridden from the command line.

Installation Instructions:<o:p>

<o:p> Download the Nant executable from the Nant site, http://nant.sourceforge.net. The latest version was 0.85 at the time of writing this article. Extract the executable to a local directory, say C:\Nant\. The binary executable for nant will be stored in C:\Nant\bin, which is Nant.exe. This exe will be responsible for executing your scripts. So <o:p>

i. Either you have to dump your scripts to C:\Nant folder or<o:p>

ii. Add the path (C:\Nant\bin) to your PATH environment variable.<o:p>

<o:p>In this article I will follow the first approach.<o:p>

<o:p> Using the code

A "Hello World" Example<o:p>

Consider the following very simple NAnt script:<o:p>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><o:p>

<project name="HelloWorld" default="go"><o:p>

<property name="message" value="Hello World!"/><o:p>

<target name="go"><o:p>

<echo message="${message}"/><o:p>

</target><o:p>

</project><o:p>

<o:p>
<o:p>

Save this script as HelloWorld.build and then do one of two things. Either navigate to the<o:p>

directory in which the file is saved and type<o:p>

Nant<o:p>

or use an explicit path to the file at the command prompt such as<o:p>

// nant -f:D:\BookCode\Chapter2\HelloWorld.build



// 

You will get the following output:<o:p>

<o:p>

---------- NAnt ----------<o:p>

NAnt 0.85<o:p>

Copyright (C) 2001-2003 Gerry Shaw<o:p>

http://nant.sourceforge.net<o:p>

Buildfile: file:///HelloWorld.build<o:p>

Target(s) specified: go<o:p>

go:<o:p>

[echo] Hello World!<o:p>

BUILD SUCCEEDED<o:p>

Total time: 0 seconds.<o:p>

Output completed (0 sec consumed) - Normal Termination

The Project<o:p>

The project node is the root node of a build file. This node can contain any number of<o:p>

<property> nodes, <task> nodes, and <target> nodes. Generally, the rest of the build file is<o:p>

now defined either as a property, or as a target, or as a task within a target.<o:p>

<o:p>

Project Node attributes: <o:p>

<o:p>

name The name of the project.<o:p>

default The default target to use when no target is supplied.<o:p>

basedir The base directory from which all path calculations are done. No<o:p>

Current directory is the default.<o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

The Target<o:p>

Targets are used to "modularize" the build file. A target contains zero or more tasks to be completed<o:p>

in a sequence.<o:p>

Target Node attributes <o:p>

<o:p>

name<o:p>

The name attribute is crucial to the target, as the target is invoked by name. Simple as that.<o:p>

description<o:p>

The description is shown when the –projecthelp switch is used at the command line, and so<o:p>

can be of some assistance to a user of the build file.<o:p>

depends<o:p>

Targets can be made to depend on each other by use of the depends attribute. This attribute<o:p>

takes a comma-delimited list of targets that are to be executed prior to the execution of the<o:p>

target in question. For example:<o:p>

<target name="go" depends="foo, bar"/><o:p>

This means that target go will not execute until target foo and then target bar have been executed.<o:p>

Additionally, any targets that foo or bar depend on must be executed. You will be pleased<o:p>

to note that NAnt can figure out circular dependencies so that the following build file will not<o:p>

execute:<o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

Properties :<o:p>

These are similar to the variables used in a programming language. They are used as a key value pair.<o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

Important tasks with NAnt:<o:p>

<o:p>

NUnit: <o:p>

Nant can be used to run unit test suite written in NUnit framework. Nant provides the <Nunit2> element for this purpose. (Note that here 2 stands for version 2 of nunit framework) . The sample script is as follows:<o:p>

<o:p>

<?xml version="1.0"?><o:p>

<project name="testNUnit"><o:p>

<nunit2><o:p>

<formatter<o:p>

type="Xml"<o:p>

usefile="true"<o:p>

extension=".xml"<o:p>

outputdir="C:\NAnt\NUnitResults\" /><o:p>

<test assemblyname="E:\testing\TestClassLibrary1\\bin\Debug\TestClassLibrary1.dll" /><o:p>

</nunit2><o:p>

</project><o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

NDoc:<o:p>

<o:p>

NDoc is a tool that can be used to create extremely presentable<o:p>

MSDN-style documentation in web or compiled HTML (CHM) formats from the<o:p>

XML documentation capabilities of the C# language.<o:p>

NAnt comes with a version of the core<o:p>

NDoc assembly, and this task can be used to perform the same action:<o:p>

<o:p>

<?xml version="1.0"?><o:p>

<project name="TestNDoc"><o:p>

<ndoc><o:p>

<assemblies basedir="E:\testing\ClassLibrary1\ClassLibrary1\bin\Debug\"><o:p>

<include name="ClassLibrary1.dll" /><o:p>

</assemblies><o:p>

<summaries><o:p>

<include name="ClassLibrary1.xml" /><o:p>

</summaries><o:p>

<documenters><o:p>

<documenter name="MSDN"><o:p>

<property name="OutputDirectory" value="C:\MyDocs\NDOC" /><o:p>

<property name="HtmlHelpName" value="MyProject" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingSummaries" value="True" /><o:p>

<property<o:p>

name="HtmlHelpCompilerFilename" value="hhc.exe" /><o:p>

<property name="IncludeFavorites" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="Title" value="MySystem (NDoc)" /><o:p>

<property name="SplitTOCs" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="DefaulTOC" value="" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowVisualBasic" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingSummaries" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingRemarks" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingParams" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingReturns" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="ShowMissingValues" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="DocumentInternals" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="DocumentProtected" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="DocumentPrivates" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="DocumentEmptyNamespaces" value="False" /><o:p>

<property name="IncludeAssemblyVersion" value="True" /><o:p>

<property name="CopyrightText" value="Etomic 2005" /><o:p>

<property name="CopyrightHref" value="" /><o:p>

</documenter><o:p>

</documenters><o:p>

</ndoc><o:p>

</project><o:p>

<o:p>

The above script generates the ndoc for the assembly classlibrary1 which is present in the base directory mentioned.<o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

FxCop:<o:p>

Nant can be used to automate fxcop command. The following script explains how: <o:p>

<o:p>

<?xml version="1.0"?><o:p>

<project name="testFxCop"><o:p>

<exec<o:p>

program="C:\Program Files\Microsoft FxCop 1.35\FxCopCmd.exe"<o:p>

commandline="/f:E:\testing\ClassLibrary1\ClassLibrary1\bin\Debug\ClassLibrary1.dll /o:fxcop.xml"<o:p>

failonerror="false" /><o:p>

</project><o:p>

Replace value of program attribute to whatever is the version of fxcop executable in your machine. <o:p>

Mention the path for assembly in commandline, along with name of the output file desired.<o:p>

Faileonerror indicates whether to stop the process once an error is encountered. <o:p>

<o:p>

<o:p>

NCover: <o:p>

<o:p>
<project name="testNCover" default="coverage" failonerror="true"><o:p>

<loadtasks assembly="NCoverExplorer.NAntTasks.dll" /><o:p>

<target name="coverage" description="Code coverage test run."><o:p>

<ncover<o:p>

program="C:\Program Files\NCover\Ncover.console.exe" <o:p>

commandLineExe="C:\Program Files\NUnit-Net-2.0 2.2.8\bin\nunit-console.exe" <o:p>

commandLineArgs="E:\REL\Test\TestTest\bin\Debug\TestTest.dll"<o:p>

logLevel="Verbose"<o:p>

excludeAttributes="CoverageExcludeAttribute"><o:p>

<assemblies basedir="E:\REL\Test\Test\bin\Debug"><o:p>

<!-- include this to have only the test.dll reviewed and not the TestTest.dll --><o:p>

<include name="Test.dll"/> <o:p>

</assemblies><o:p>

</ncover>

<o:p>

To exclude a selected class or method from being reviewed by ncoverage, use the CoverageExclude attribute.<o:p>

public class CoverageExcludeAttribute : Attribute { }<o:p>

namespace MyApp<o:p>

{<o:p>

[CoverageExclude]<o:p>

Partial class MyClass<o:p>

{<o:p>

<o:p>

}<o:p>

}<o:p>

Add the CoverageExclude attribute to your file , either on top of class or method. <o:p>

This will exclude the designated method or class from being reviewed.<o:p>

Summary:

I hope this article has given you a basic idea about writing Nant scripts for cruise control integration. You can get more documenation and online help at http://nant.sourceforge.net..

Thill then happy scripting !!!.