Simple build process automation on Windows

Question

I'm not a huge fan of tools like Ant, but they are certainly useful. In a current C++ project I have no automated build process at all - I simply build my working dir using Visual studio, zip up the /bin folder and send it out for installation. The project is small enough this does work OK, but it's totally reliant on me knowing the project inside out.

I'd like a system which can do steps like:

• update multiple SVN working dirs to a specified version (or default to Head)
• run doxygen (or similar tool) to get API docs up to date
• commit the API docs to some SVN repo
• build several projects in the right order
• copy some stuff about, delete unwanted files
• package files/folders into a zip/folder named based on a user-specified version, or found from a file/SVN

Free is important. Easy to use is another. Windows is essential, and that doesn't include cygwin options.

It had crossed my mind you could probably do this using a .bat file, is that a viable option on what is still quite a small project (1-4 developers)?

Answer 1

Hudson is very easy to setup, install and run, and has no problems running in a windows environment. You don't have to use it for continuous integration, it will happily do builds only when you tell it to.

Hudson has native support for executing windows batch scripts and will happily work NANT or cmake via plugins. If there isn't already a plugin for something you want to do, you can pretty easily accomplish it, if it could normally be done from the command line.

Please note: the Hudson project has been renamed Jenkins