Jenkins share build number across jobs?

Question

We are currently developing an app with multiple parallel streams of development. We have a Jenkins job to build each stream/release. So Job-A may be building release 1.1, and Job-B may be building release 1.2.

I think it would be best to have the build number shared across each release, such that if Job-A runs with build number 125, if Job-B runs next it will run with build number 126. The reason I think this is the best strategy is that this is an Android app, which requires its versionCode parameter to be incremented each time it's submitted to Google Play. We use the Jenkins build number for the versionCode value.

Is there any way to configure Jenkins to share a build number across multiple jobs? Or, has anyone come up with a better solution to this problem?

Answer 1

short answer use timestamps or manually set versionCodes, keep things out of the CI server when not necessary. Or force the jenkins build numbers.

long answer I like jenkins to be responsible for automating something that also works on its own. So if I don't need jenkins for the setup, I am happy as well.

Also if you use 2 branches, you probably commit in random orders into them. Trying to tie the jobs together in some ways seems like an unnecessary trouble that could be a problem later on. E.g. what if version 2.0 is built and QAed now, just waiting for the proper release date and marketing team to complete its job, but you need to release a v1.1.1 quick fix after that ? Depending on the solution you pick, you may need to trigger some rebuilds to force a versionCode bump. New build, new QA ?

Your real requirement for the versionCode is for it to be higher than the previous release.

From http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/manifest-element.html

android:versionCode An internal version number.

This number is used only to determine whether one version is more recent than another, with higher numbers indicating more recent versions. This is not the version number shown to users; that number is set by the versionName attribute. The value must be set as an integer, such as "100". You can define it however you want, as long as each successive version has a higher number. For example, it could be a build number. Or you could translate a version number in "x.y" format to an integer by encoding the "x" and "y" separately in the lower and upper 16 bits. Or you could simply increase the number by one each time a new version is released.

So here are 2 solutions:

• manual bumping. In our projects, I use some sed scripts to automate the bumping of the build number before release. As I also need to change a few things by hand, like versionName prefix, disable/enable debugging mode during development, etc, I manually run a bumpversion script so that next build in my branch has appropriate version and versionCode numbers. Note I use the jenkins build number in versionName instead. This solution prevents you from having the 1.1.1 needs to be out after v2 is ready problem if you pick a large enough versionCode bump for v2.

• another more automated yet still simple solution would be to use something out of timestamps. The format YYMMDDHHSS is good enough of an integer (< 2^31), and chances are that whatever version you are going to release next is going to be prepared after the previous one and not within the same minute. So basically when you build v1.1, it gets e.g. 1308131600 and if you build v1.2 the minute after it gets 1308131601. (this obviously doesn't help you against the v1.1.1/v2 scenario)

Here are some ideas for scripts to generate/update versionCode Auto increment version code in Android app.

The jenkins way

Now if you still want jenkins in charge, a simple solution is to use something like https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Next+Build+Number+Plugin and configure your per branch jobs to have a large enough prefix to ensure no clash. The setup is still pretty simple.

E.g.

• 110000 for branch 1.1
• 120000 for branch 1.2