[Buildbot-devel] tips for creating new P4-based source buildStep ?

Tue Mar 5 23:13:42 UTC 2013

Hi Bill-

Thanks a ton for your contributions. I popped your p4.py in place a 
littler earlier today.

Had to do a few quick tweaks just to get things working (undefined 
defaultBranch) and I may have some suggestions to improve the situation 
with setups that don't use p4viewspec -- we don't use a 
p4branch-compatible p4 setup here, so that if/then section may need a 
little tweaking to make p4base+p4client work without a defined p4branch.

There's one thing I still need to try to ensure everything will work 
properly here in my environment, but glad to be up and running with a 
non-slave p4 source step.

The two-mode operation is great and simple (full or incremental).

No problems so far, but just getting into the depths of my config, so 
we'll see how things go. Regardless, I should be able to provide some 
more formal comments and/or patches for your consideration.

Thanks again, and I'll post back again when I have more thorough feedback.

-Stephan

On 3/5/2013 2:18 PM, William Deegan wrote:
> Stephan
>
>
> On Mar 5, 2013, at 8:42 AM, Stephan Koledin <skoledin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think I finally found your new master step. Apparently I hadn't looked very hard the first time around. Is this it?
>> https://github.com/bdbaddog/buildbot/blob/p4_master_step_2012/master/buildbot/steps/source/p4.py
>
> Yes.
> Also here's the pull request:
> https://github.com/buildbot/buildbot/pull/596
> It's in production use at a client currently.
>
>> Does this step depend on any other mods in your branch, or is it pretty standalone vs 0.8.7? I guess I'm wondering if I can give it a quick test run by just patching it into my existing setup.
>
> It should work fine against 0.8.7.
> If not let me know and I'll help address any issues.
> There's also docs for this.
> One of the changes I made was to allow specifying the p4 client spec pretty flexibly.
> Take a look at _createClientSpec  (line 313).
>
> I'm guessing from your original description that you want to have "-" lines in your client spec?
> Or did you want to pull from several different depots?
> or other?
>
> If you can explain a bit, I can let you know if the code will just handle it and/or perhaps help you make the necessary changes.
>
> -Bill
>
>>
>> Thanks.
>> -Stephan
>>
>> On 3/5/2013 8:28 AM, Stephan Koledin wrote:
>>> Bill, Dustin-
>>>
>>> Thanks for the great info/feedback. Agree that it makes a lot more sense
>>> to contribute to a p4 master step and of course, I'd feed back any work
>>> I do that's not just a local "customization".
>>>
>>> At the moment, I've got some pressure to get something out the door on
>>> this project fairlty quickly, so I've got a bit of a catch-22 on whether
>>> to do things "right" or just get something working. Of course, having
>>> something up and running will give me some flexibility to then help get
>>> a solid p4 master step up and working, so I guess my direction depends
>>> on how far along and stable Bill's p4 master step is.
>>>
>>> I won't be at PyCon, but might be able to take something small and run
>>> with it in parallel during that time.
>>>
>>> Bill, is your P4 master source step available somewhere? I didn't spot
>>> it in github, but I could just be not looking in the right place. Also,
>>> is this step something that can just be patched into an existing/working
>>> 0.8.7 buildbot setup, or do I need to be running on nine or some other
>>> dev tree?
>>>
>>> Also, just a point/question of interest, keep in mind I'm a relative
>>> buildbot newbie... If I wanted to override a particular buildStep
>>> method, it seems to me that if it's a master step, a simple change or
>>> derivative class could just be done via the master.cfg without having to
>>> directly patch/change the source. Is that correct, or am I being naive?
>>>
>>> Thanks again.
>>> -Stephan
>>>
>>> On 3/4/2013 10:16 PM, Bill Deegan wrote:
>>>> Stephan,
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 7:19 PM, Dustin J. Mitchell <dustin at v.igoro.us
>>>> <mailto:dustin at v.igoro.us>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Stephan Koledin <skoledin at gmail.com
>>>>     <mailto:skoledin at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>      > Thanks in advance for any advice on this. I really just want to
>>>> make
>>>>      > sure I'm headed in the right direction before committing to this
>>>>     approach.
>>>>
>>>>     It sounds like you're on the right track - at least, your
>>>>     implementation will be nicely independent of any changes to the
>>>>     existing P4 support.
>>>>
>>>>     That said, the P4 support hasn't seen much love recently:
>>>>       * last modification was in May 2012, and that was removing
>>>>     functionality; before that, August 2011
>>>>       * http://trac.buildbot.net/wiki/p4 lists the open bugs.
>>>>       * MAINTAINERS.txt indicates Bill (copied) as the maintainer, but
>>>> he's
>>>>     busy and we've been in short supply of P4 hackers
>>>>
>>>>     If you're willing, it would make the world a better place to have a
>>>>     master-side P4 step that has the flexibility you need, plus full unit
>>>>     tests (so those of us who are not P4 gurus can maintain it).
>>>>
>>>>     What do you think?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I have a functional master side P4 source step.
>>>> Lacking some tests at this point.
>>>> If you'd like to contribute to that branch rather than reinvent the
>>>> wheel.
>>>>
>>>> I was hoping to wrap this up at post pycon sprints coming up shortly.
>>>> -Bill
>>>
>>
>