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About the build file

The exported build file contains all the settings required for building and deploying the PBL files of the application and some additional settings.

Build file content

 Description 
    "MetaInfo": {
        "IDEVersion": "220",
        "RuntimeVersion": "22.0.0.1311"
    },

This section contains the version number of the PowerBuilder IDE and PowerBuilder Runtime currently in use. 

    "BuildPlan": {
        "SourceControl": {
            "PreCommand": "",
            "ClearSrcBeforeDownload": false,
            "SVN": [
                ...
            ],
            "Git": [
                ...
            ],
            "VSS": [
                ...
            ],
            "Merging": [
                ...
            ],
            "PostCommand": ""
        },
        "BuildJob": {
            "PreCommand": "",
            "Projects": [
                ...
       ],
            "PostCommand": ""
        }
    },

This section contains settings for source control and build jobs.

  • "SourceControl" -- Provides settings for downloading and merging source code from the source control server (including SVN, Git, and/or VSS).

    You can download source code from SVN, Git, or VSS. If the source code is the objects in ws_objects, you can merge the objects to the PBL file.

    You can download and merge source code for one or more targets at one time. See Getting source code from SVN, Git, or VSS for more details and examples.

    The "ClearSrcBeforeDownload" setting is for removing files from the source code folder (specified by the "DestPath" setting) before downloading the source code.

    The "Git" > "Branch" setting is for downloading source code from the specified branch.

    The "Merging" > "RefreshPbl" setting is for refreshing the PBL files by deleting and then generating the PBL files again.

    Note

    If you use Git repositories to host and collaborate on your code using Team Foundation Server (TFS) or Azure DevOps Server, you can configure the "Git" section in the build file to connect to Team Foundation Server (TFS) or Azure DevOps Server. See the next section for more information.

  • "BuildJob" -- Contains the location of the PowerBuilder application target(s) and the name of the project object(s).

    You can specify one or more targets and projects (of the same or different type) and build them at one time.

Both the "SourceControl" and "BuildJob" blocks contain a "PreCommand" key and a "PostCommand" key which allow you to specify commands that can be executed before and/or after that particular block is executed. See Executing additional commands for more examples.

The commands in "PreCommand" and "PostCommand" can be executed in synchronous (default) or asynchronous mode, and the command window can be visible or invisible (default). For example, 

"PostCommand": "postcmd.bat /show /async"
 
    "Projects": {
        "project1": {
            ...
        },
        "project2": {
            ...
        },
        "project3": {
            ...
        },
        ...
    }

This section lists the project(s) that has been exported. Every single setting that can be found in the project painter can also be found here. You can modify the settings here when necessary.

Besides the settings of the project painter, you could also configure the "UFAReport" key to enable/disable unsupported feature analysis for the PowerServer project (equivalent to the "During compilation, report unsupported PowerScript features for PowerServer deployment" option).

Note

The value of "namespace" should never be modified; the namespace is used internally to locate the C# models and embedded SQLs.


Settings in the build file are independent of each other; they run in sequence but do not rely on others or execution results, for example, if there is already source code in ws_objects, then you only need to set the Merging setting, and leave Git, SVN, and VSS empty as there is no need to download source code; or if there are PBLs in your Git server, then you only need to set the Git setting (to download PBLs) and leave the Merging setting empty. If you do not want a setting to run, just leave that setting with no values; or add "\\" in front of the setting name, for example, "\\Git" or "\\SourceControl", to skip the setting.

It is recommended that you make a copy of the exported build file and place it to the same location or a location near your PowerBuilder application target, so that you could manage the file path (especially the relative file path) easily.

Note: the relative path specified in the build file is relative to the build file.

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