Building workspaces

You can build and deploy workspaces while you are working in PowerBuilder, from a command line, or using PBAutoBuild standalone tool.

In the development environment

In the development environment, you can specify how you want the targets in your workspace to be built and deployed. Then you can build individual targets or all the targets in the workspace. The following table summarizes where you set up build and deploy options, and how you start builds.

To do this

Do this

Set deploy options for most targets

Select Properties from the pop-up menu for the target and select the Deploy tab. Check the box next to a project to build it when you select Deploy from the target's pop-up menu. Use the arrows to set the order in which projects are built.

Set options for each project in the target in the Project painter.

Set build and deploy options for the workspace

Select Properties from the pop-up menu for the workspace and select the order in which targets should be built. You can check which projects and deploy configurations are currently selected on the Deploy Preview page.

Build, migrate, or deploy a selected target

Select Incremental Build, Full Build, Migrate, or Deploy from the pop-up menu for the target. Deploy builds the projects in the target in the order listed on the Deploy page of the target's properties dialog box.

Build or deploy all the targets in the workspace

Select Incremental Build, Full Build, or Deploy from the pop-up menu for the workspace, from the Run menu, or from the PowerBar.


From a command line

When you deploy or build a workspace from a command line, PowerBuilder starts, completes the build, and exits as soon as the operation is completed. To retain a log file for the session, you can send the contents of the Output window to a file. The following table shows command-line options for building and deploying targets and workspaces.

Option

Description

/workspace workspacepath

Open the workspace workspacepath

/target targetpath

Open the target targetpath

/deploy

Deploy the workspace and exit

/fullbuild

Fully build the workspace and exit

/incrementalbuild

Incrementally build the workspace and exit

/output outputpath

Log the contents of the Output window to outputpath


As with other command-line options, you need only use the initial letter or letters of the option name as long as the option is uniquely identified. The deploy, fullbuild, and incrementalbuild options can be used only with the workspace option. You need to create projects and specify build and deploy options for the workspace in PowerBuilder before you start a build from the command line. Deploy builds the projects in the target in the order listed on the Deploy page of the target's properties dialog box.

Example

This example assumes that the location of the PowerBuilder executable file is in your system path. It opens the workspace called CDShop, builds and deploys the targets in the workspace according to your specifications in the workspace and target properties, records the content of the Output window in the file D:\tmp\cdshop.out, and exits PowerBuilder:

pb220 /w D:\CDShop\CDShop.pbw /d /out D:\tmp\cdshop.out

The output from all the tab pages in the Output window and from all the projects is included in the output file.

There are additional command-line options you can use to start PowerBuilder. See Using command line arguments.

Using PBAutoBuild standalone tool

Instead of building the project from the PowerBuilder IDE, you can also build the project using a standalone tool (PBAutoBuild220.exe) in the command-line mode. PBAutoBuild220.exe can automate the entire build and deploy process without requiring PowerBuilder IDE installed or any PowerBuilder license running.

PBAutoBuild220 /f c:\salesdemo_local.json /l Log_PCBuild.log /le Log_PCError.log

For more details on how to build the PowerClient project with PBAutoBuild, refer to Building the PowerClient project with commands and Tutorial: Building your PowerClient project with commands.

For more details on how to build the Application project with PBAutoBuild, refer to Building a client/server application with commands and Tutorial: Building your client/server application with commands.

For more details on how to build the PowerServer project with PBAutoBuild, refer to Build & deploy using commands and Tutorial: Building your PowerServer project with commands.