continuous4r

What is it ?

Continuous4R is a continuous integration tool for Ruby on Rails. With it, you can aggregate reports of the best analysis, quality, tests and deployment tools for Ruby and Rails. By just defining one Rake task and writing an XML file describing your project, Continuous4R builds for you an entire website in a Maven form.

Installing

sudo gem install continuous4r

The basics

Defining the Rake task

In order to build your project, you need to declare one Rake task. Under the lib/tasks directory of your project, create a file named continuous4r.rake :

require 'rubygems'
require 'continuous4r'

# Tache Rake pour la construction du site Continuous4R
namespace :continuous4r do
  desc 'Build Continuous4R Website for the current project'
  task :build do
    Continuous4r.generate_site
  end  
end

Writing the XML file describing your project

This file must be named continuous4r-project.xml, and must be placed at the top of your Rails project directory. This file must not have a XML header (<?xml version…). Here’s the model of this file :

<project name="PROJECT_NAME">
    <description>PROJECT_DESCRIPTION</description>
    <url>PROJECT_URL</url>
    <logo>PROJECT_IMAGE_URI</logo>
    <!-- Describing your project members -->
    <members>
        <member id="MEMBER_LOGIN" name="MEMBER_NAME" email="MEMBER_EMAIL"
            roles="MEMBER_ROLES" company="MEMBER_COMPANY_NAME"/>
        ...
    </members>
    <bugtracker>
        <tracker_type>[Trac|Bugzilla|Mantis|etc...]</tracker_type>
        <tracker_url>BUGTRACKER_URL</tracker_url>
        <tracker_account_create>BUGTRACKER_URL_ACCOUNT_CREATION</tracker_account_create>
        <search>BUGTRACKER_URL_SEARCH_TICKETS</search>
        <url>BUGTRACKER_URL_TICKETS_LIST</url>
        <add>BUGTRACKER_URL_TICKET_ADD</add>
    </bugtracker>
    <scm>
        <repository_type>[svn|cvs]</repository_type>
        <url>SCM_URL</url>
        <view>SCM_VIEWER_URL</view>
        <!-- needed if authentication for access is mandatory -->
        <user>userlogin</user>
        <password>userpassword</password>
    </scm>
    <!-- Gems mandatory for your project -->
    <gems>
        <gem name="GEM_NAME" version="GEM_VERSION"/>
        ...
    </gems>
    <!-- Tasks in order to generate reports, described further -->
    <tasks [autoinstall="true"] <!-- activates autoinstall for gems needed by tasks --> >
        ...
    </tasks>
</project>

Defining tasks

Changelog task

Builds a report of the last modifications on the SCM repository. Only Subversion is supported at the time.

<task name="changelog"/>

Sample

Stats task

Generates a report of the Rails statistics on your project.

<task name="stats">
    <description>Provides statistics on your Rails code</description>
</task>

Sample

Dcov task

Generates a report on the rdoc coverage of your Ruby code. The parts which are not covered are colored in red.
The pattern param enables you to select the Ruby code to control.
The report param is the path where Continuous4R can find the dcov original report (due to a bug in dcov).

<task name="dcov">
    <description>Rdoc coverage analysis report</description>
    <params>
        <pattern value="app/**/*.rb"/>
        <report path="coverage.html"/>
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Rcov task

Builds a report on the coverage of your tests over your Ruby code.

<task name="rcov">
    <params>
        <!-- file which loads all the necessary test files (based on requires) -->
        <file path="test/rcov_test_all.rb"/>
        <!-- path where to find the reports generated by rcov -->
        <reports path="coverage"/>
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Rdoc task

Generates a report of the rdoc generation, and gives access to the rdoc.

<task name="rdoc"/>

Sample

Flog task

Flog is a tool which provides statistics of your Ruby code’s complexity. This task generates an HTML report of these statistics.

<task name="flog"/>

Sample

Kwala task

Kwala is a continuous integration tool which gathers informations of the quality and metrics on your project. This task integrates the reports produced by kwala to the site.

<task name="kwala">
    <params>
        <!-- set of actions understood by kwala -->
        <actions>
            <action>loc</action>
            <action>syntax_check</action>
            <action>formatting</action>
            <action>code_duplication</action>
            <action>cyclomatic</action>
            <action>unit_test</action>
            <action>comment_check</action>
            <action>requires</action>
            <action>cycles</action>
        </actions>
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Railroad task

Railroad is a tool to generate graphs of your models and/or your controllers. This task generates your graphs and presents them on a HTML report. This task is not compatible with CruiseControl.rb.

<task name="railroad">
    <params>
        <generate value="controllers|models|all"/>
    </params>
</task>

Httperf task

Httperf is a HTTP stress tool which generates text reports for a really important number of statistics. This task generates a HTML report for these statistics.

<task name="httperf">
    <params>
        <!-- set of ports which will match Mongrel instances (all managed within) -->
        <ports>
            <port>3334</port>
        </ports>
        <processes>
            <process port="3334" url="/controller/action?param=value" 
                requests="50" timeout="2">
                <description>Stressing application with 50 requests (URL http://127.0.0.1:3334/controller/action?param=value), 
                    with a timeout set to 2 seconds.</description>
            </process>
            <process port="3334" url="/controller/action?param=value"
                sessions="10,5,2" rate="5" timeout="3">
                <description>Stressing application with 10 sessions (URL http://127.0.0.1:3334/controller/action?param=value),
                    with a rate of 5 sessions per second. Each  session consists 
                    of 5 calls that are spaced out by 2 seconds. Timeout is set to 3 seconds.</description>
            </process>
        </processes>
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Tests task

Generates a report for the results of your tests.

<task name="tests">
    <params>
        <runner type="units"/><!-- equivalent to rake test:units -->
        <runner type="functionals"/><!-- equivalent to rake test:functionals -->
        <runner type="integration"/><!-- equivalent to rake test:integration -->
        <runner type="rspec"/><!-- equivalent to rake spec -->
    </params>
</task>

Sample

ZenTest task

ZenTest is a tool which generates Ruby code to show your test leaks. This task generates a report to show where these leaks are.

<task name="zentest">
    <params>
        <!-- runs an analysis of the efficiency/exhaustiveness of the HomeControllerTest 
            test class against the HomeController class -->
        <runner class="app/controllers/home_controller.rb" test="test/functional/home_controller_test.rb"/>
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Capistrano task

Generates reports for you Capistrano deployments.

<task name="capistrano">
    <!-- set of runners for your Capistrano deployments -->
    <params>
        <runner task="deploy"/><!-- equivalent to 'cap deploy' -->
    </params>
</task>

Sample

Demonstration of usage

When the XML file describing your project is written, you can build the Continuous4R website by typing :

rake continuous4r:build

Now you can view the website generated for your project by lauching [project_folder]/continuous4r_build/index.html.

Integration within CruiseControl.rb

Integration within CruiseControl.rb is quite simple. You just need to configure your project to build task “rake continuous4r:build”. When the build is done, go to the detail page of the build, and click on the link below “Custom Build Artifacts”.

Help needed

This version 0.0.1 is a beta version of Continuous4r. I’m searching for volunteers to work on this tool. With a more substancial amount of quality and work, this tool could be REALLY GREAT.

License

This code is free to use under the terms of the MIT license.

Contact

Comments are welcome. Send an email to Vincent Dubois, or post a message on the forum.

Vincent Dubois, 1st January 2008
Theme extended from Paul Battley