[Buildbot-devel] Grouping steps (teething troubles writing a custom BuildStep)

[Ellis Breen]

Hi all,

We have been running a regression test system using Buildbot for many
months, and now have a master.cfg that generates many hundreds of steps.
Unfortunately, this is making it difficult to view the entirety of a build
on the Waterfall display. Hence, I am trying to find a way of putting steps
into groups. I didn't spot anything in the API docs or manual regarding
this, so am attempting to write my own custom BuildStep to allow this, but
am still familiarising myself with the codebase.

I'm hacking around at the moment trying to create a 'GroupStep' class
(inheriting from the LoggingBuildStep class) . My current thinking is that I
might be able to create a 'sub-builder' in this class and then add builds to
that, which can in turn have steps added to them. Not sure how I'd monitor
the progress of such a buildstep, but hopefully it wouldn't be too
dissimilar to the way things work now.

Am I trying to reinvent the wheel? If so, what would you recommend using
instead? If not, any hints or tips on how to progress? Is there any
additional developer documentation around? I'm having trouble grokking
everything from just the docs, although I'm slowly tracing my way through
the code and associated comments (which is filling me in on a lot of missing
info from the docs).

Thanks,

Ellis
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