Does anyone have any examples of using Beyond Compare to create diff
reports in CCNet?

What I would like to do first is be able to go to the CCNet web page
and get to a diff report showing all the files that changed for a
particular build.

Second I would like to be able to email that report to the necessary
people or at least a link to the report web page.

And just for an added twist we are using StarTeam 2006 r2 for SCM.

Thanks in advance,

KMF

You could have a look at the modification history publisher (See [1, 2]
for example). Or you could have a look at the ModificationWriter task
(See [3]) - maybe you can build something yourself using that one. Of
course these all only show the files that changed not the differences in
the files in terms of a unified diff or so.

regards,

Daniel

[1]
http://ccnetlive.thoughtworks.com/ccnet/server/local/project/CCNet/Vi...
[2]
http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/ModificationH...
[3]
http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/CCNET/Modification+...

I saw those but the modification history publisher as you say just shows
the files that changed.  While that is useful doesn't go as far as I
would like.  And to be honest I just don't understand how to get the
ModificationWriter and ModificationReader to do what I need.  Would
anyone have an example of how to use these?

Thanks,
KMF

KMF,

You'll need to be able to view the two versions of the code.  If your builds
are always labeled, then you should probably be able to get each labeled
version into two directories, then you can do a file diff report from BC
using it's standard scripting language.  Refer to the BC docs for details on
doing this.

One problem I have encountered when automating BC is that calling it from a
command line is not a blocking call.  So if you have a scripted process that
calls BC then tries to do something with it, you'll have to program in some
sleep time based on what you expect for the BC comparison.  I have
experimented with BC for automation in several ways and I can't find a
solution to this problem.  For a comparison such as a development project
there could be quite a bit of variation in the comparison time, so it may be
rather tricky.  One solution might be to use an FS watcher that waits for
the BC diff report output file.  This might work ok.  Also, because you can
do some simple file operations inside the BC scripting, you might be able to
use some kind of beacon file operation (such as touching a fixed file's
datestamp).  The file watch process could monitor for that distinct
operation.

After you have the comparison, emailing or saving to a web accessible
address should be fairly straightforward.  It certainly sounds like a very
nifty idea.

Peter