Deployment automation of RPGLE with Gradle on IBM i

Question

Does anyone have an expertise on building IBM i software: rpgle, sqlrpgle, clle programs, srvpgms with gradle?

The idea for now is:

• all source code stored in git repo
• jenkins ci, integrated with git, pulls software update
• there is a json file in commit also, where stored a full description of release (project info, dependencies, all objects description with build instructions), just like pom.xml in maven
• on that place jenkins should run gradle task that should build all programs from source code in jenkins working directory, based on instructions in json file. But the problem is - for IBM i compilation available only on server and there is no plugins available for that.

The gradle project should be something like this:

• transfer source code on server
• execute remote compilation of each object with instructions from json
• deploy binaries in specified libraries
• execute commands - create dataara, change it, run sql scripts and others

So the questions are:

1. Is that scheme correct?
2. Are gradle project phases correct?
3. How can I implement that in gradle?

Answer 1

I know I am a little late but for anyone reading it later on here are my 2 cents:

I have done the Jenkins, Git and compile part of the question. Though I have used a simple shell script instead of gradle but that could be adjusted.

Here are my documented steps: http://wiki.rpgnextgen.com/doku.php?id=ibm_i_and_continuous_integration

And I used the following repo for testing: https://bitbucket.org/m1hael/linkedlist