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 Continuous Integration with Jenkins and LabVIEW

Ryan Sparks
National Instruments

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Is this presentation for you?
• You work on medium to large projects

• Multiple developers work on the same project

• You perform unit testing

• Your builds (exe, llb, etc) take a long time

• You want to automate your functional testing

• You maintain applications across multiple versions of LabVIEW

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What is Continuous Integration?
• Definition:
Continuous Integration (CI) is a development practice that requires
developers to integrate code into a shared repository several times
a day. Each check-in is then verified by an automated build, allowing
teams to detect problems early.

• Possible Components:
• Frequent commits to source code control
• Unit Testing
• Compiling (llb, exe, VI package, etc)
• Functional Testing

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Benefits of Continuous Integration
• Unit Testing & Functional Testing
• Find Bugs Sooner
o Reduce Debugging Time
• Automate the Testing
o Reduce Validation Cycle

• Building the Package

• Automate & offload the build process
o Development can continue while current changes are built
• Build across LabVIEW versions
o Lowers burden for improving “legacy” code

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Example Workflow

Unit Testing
Developers

Source Control
Build

CI Tool

Functional Test

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Continuous Integration Tools
• Apache Continuum
• CruiseControl
• Hudson
• Jenkins
• Travis CI
• Bamboo
• And many more…

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Case Study: VeriStand Custom Devices
• Plug-In to extend VeriStand
• LabVIEW Project
• Multiple Targets
o My Computer
o PXI
o cRIO
• Multiple build specifications
• 5-100’s of VIs

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Case Study: Engine Simulation Custom Device
• For each major revision we would:
1. Open LabVIEW 2013 & code base
2. Build all build specifications
3. Install and test the code on a functional system
4. Repeat steps 1-3 for LabVIEW 2014

• Difficulties
• Manual loading and starting of builds
• LabVIEW locked while building
• Manual tracking of build failures/successes
• Manual tracking of testing failures/successes
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Implementing CI with Jenkins
• Automate build & test process with Jenkins
• Existing batch file & VI implementation by JKI
• Feature Highlights:
• Open Source
• Web-Based GUI
• Simple Job Configuration
• Multiple Build Executors

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NI Real-Time Test SE Build Server

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 Demo - Creating & Configuring a Jenkins Job

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Understanding Build.bat
• Core of the build process
• Parameterized for enabling/disabling features
• Receives commands from Autobuild.csv
• Calls a VI to execute commands
• Identifies LabVIEW version of source code
• Iterates through higher versions of LabVIEW
• Moves built files to a release folder

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Understanding Autobuild.csv
• Create and place at root of repository
• Contains commands to be executed
• Command components are tab-delimited
• Each line is a separate command
• Supports four commands
• Build specification
o Ex: Source\MyExample.lvproj<TAB>My Computer<TAB>Release Build
• Directory to mass compile
o Ex: mc<TAB>Source
• VI to run
o Ex: vi<TAB>Test\myVI.vi
• VI Package
o Ex: vipm<TAB>Code\mypackage.vipb
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The Progression of a Job

Developers

Source Control

Jenkins

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The Progression of a Job

Build.bat

Autobuild.csv

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Case Study: Engine Simulation Custom Device
• Automate builds & functional testing
• Two Jenkins jobs

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 Demo – Implementing JUnit Reporting

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Setting Up Your CI Server
• VM or spare computer (recommended)
• CI Tool supporting batch commands
• Jenkins is available at www.jenkins-ci.org
• LabVIEW, modules, toolkits, and drivers required for your applications
• Batch and supporting files
• Available on our github repo
• https://github.com/NIVeriStandAdd-Ons/Jenkins-Autobuild
• JKI & OpenG dependencies
• Getting started guide*
• Junit XML API*

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Barriers to Entry
• Another tool to learn
o Installation and configuration
o Not specifically designed for G environments
• Adding functionality can be tricky
• No LabVIEW API
• No direct integration with LabVIEW

Another tool is in development by NI Systems Engineering

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LabVIEW CI Web Service – Project Goals
• Lower the bar for LabVIEW developers to use Continuous Integration
• Better Build Tools
• Better Setup Experience
• Leverage Jenkins as much as possible
• Better way to interact with Jenkins

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LabVIEW CI Web Service

Jenkins

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The Job

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LabVIEW CI Project Builder

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Roadmap
• NIWeek 2015 (Estimate)
• CI Web Service, delivered as VI packages
o LabVIEW Build Extension
o VI Analyzer Extension
• Alfred in the Tools Menu
• Supporting documentation
• CLA Summit 2016
• Alfred as Project Provider (new build specification)
• VI Tester Extension with JUnit results
• Improved installer experience

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 Questions?

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