NAnt for native code environment

Question

Hi,

Does anyone know any good tutorial about using NAnt for native code build process instructions?

Answer 1

We tried a while ago to use NAnt to build a large VC++ (VS2005) project ... it didn't work.

The problem was there is no way of capturing the dependencies outside of Visual Studio. Ie. which cpp files should be rebuilt when a given header file is modified.

We could create nant tasks that threw all the files at the compiler, and it would rebuild them all every time.

In the end we stuck with a NAnt task that invoked devenv to do the build. This may have changed in VS2008, but I doubt it ...

Answer 2

Is there any other tool for build process automation that is better suitable with native code environment?

Answer 3

The thing with NAnt is that it can be made to do anything you want. Since I don't have the full details of what you're trying to do I can only go off of what we've used it for.

We currently have many different systems that are hooked into the automated build. You mention native development which I take as Win32 or non .NET code. The majority of our products are written in a non-Microsoft IDE. NAnt still was the winner for us because as long as the IDE or tools that you're using to develop with have some sort of command line interface, it generally just takes calling the exec task to utilize them.

I don't specifically have any tutorials for you to do this without further knowing more details of your endeavor.

Answer 4

We are developing a win32 mobile application and it will be available online for download as a CAB file. The CAB file should include the informations filled by user before the download so the application install process would write some user's information into the device registry.