Database Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 3
Automating iOS Builds
One of the constants of the Enterprise universe is that, almost before you have your
first line of code written, someone will be asking you to set up automated nightly builds
with regression testing. And I'm not disagreeing with the practice, because nothing will
get a project in trouble faster than the “it worked on my desktop” syndrome. Automated
builds are a good way to keep developers honest, and they also can provide a single
place for your testing team to get builds to bang on.
And the good news is, with a little bit of finesse, you can get your iOS builds automated,
and never have to worry about it again. Apple doesn't make it easy to do, not so much
because the tools aren't there, but that it can be a scavenger hunt through forums,
sparse documentation, and third-party web-sites to find out exactly how to make it
tick. What we'll do in this chapter is to go through the entire process from start to end,
so that hopefully you can do it without having to dive into all the research.
Introducing Hudson
There are no lack of build automation systems available these days, and any attempt
to cover them all would be far outside the scope of this topic. Instead, we'll look at one
popular, open-source build system, called Hudson. Java developers are probably fa-
miliar with Hudson, since it is one of the leading tools for build automation in that
space. But Hudson can be used for just about any type of build, and if you haven't
already chosen a system, I'd make a strong recommendation for Hudson. But regardless
of what build system you plan to use, the tips about how to execute builds from the
command line (which is the heart of automating an iOS build) should be valid.
Hudson was pioneered at Sun, and was acquired by Oracle as part of their purchase of
Sun. Due to some political turmoil between Oracle and the Hudson developer
community, a forked version of Hudson called Jenkins was created, which is (for the
moment) entirely compatible with Hudson. In the summer of 2011, Oracle donated
Hudson to the Eclipse Foundation—whether this will allow a reconciliation with the
Jenkins crowd is yet to be seen.
