Jenkins pipeline if else not working

Question

I am creating a sample jenkins pipeline, here is the code.

pipeline {     agent any       stages {             stage('test') {              steps {                  sh 'echo hello'             }                     }         stage('test1') {              steps {                  sh 'echo $TEST'             }                     }         stage('test3') {             if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'master') {                 echo 'I only execute on the master branch'             } else {                 echo 'I execute elsewhere'             }                                 }             } } 

this pipeline fails with following error logs

Started by user admin org.codehaus.groovy.control.MultipleCompilationErrorsException: startup failed: WorkflowScript: 15: Not a valid stage section definition: "if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'master') {                 echo 'I only execute on the master branch'             } else {                 echo 'I execute elsewhere'             }". Some extra configuration is required. @ line 15, column 9.            stage('test3') {            ^  WorkflowScript: 15: Nothing to execute within stage "test3" @ line 15, column 9.            stage('test3') {            ^ 

But when i execute the following example from this url, it executes successfully and print the else part.

node {     stage('Example') {         if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'master') {             echo 'I only execute on the master branch'         } else {             echo 'I execute elsewhere'         }     } } 

The only difference i can see is that in the working example there is no stages but in my case it has.

What is wrong here, can anyone please suggest?

Answer 1

your first try is using declarative pipelines, and the second working one is using scripted pipelines. you need to enclose steps in a steps declaration, and you can't use if as a top-level step in declarative, so you need to wrap it in a script step. here's a working declarative version:

pipeline {     agent any      stages {         stage('test') {             steps {                 sh 'echo hello'             }         }         stage('test1') {             steps {                 sh 'echo $TEST'             }         }         stage('test3') {             steps {                 script {                     if (env.BRANCH_NAME == 'master') {                         echo 'I only execute on the master branch'                     } else {                         echo 'I execute elsewhere'                     }                 }             }         }     } } 

you can simplify this and potentially avoid the if statement (as long as you don't need the else) by using "when". See "when directive" at https://jenkins.io/doc/book/pipeline/syntax/. you can also validate jenkinsfiles using the jenkins rest api. it's super sweet. have fun with declarative pipelines in jenkins!