How to retrieve Build Status in XML from TeamCity

Question

Hi there,

I need to retrieve the Build Status from TeamCity in the form of XML, RSS format would be ideal.

I am familiar with the RSS feed within Teamcity but that is of no use as it is more of a history view. I am looking for something more like the page generated by the Status Widget but in XML form. (FYI, the status widget page is not XHTML - tried that!)

I wonder if anyone has across anything that could assist?

Kind Regards, David Christiansen

Answer 1

Edit: as you point out, the RSS feed from TeamCity only includes completed builds.

One possibility would be to grab the HTML from the project you're interested in's details page, and then pull the current status from the top entry in the table of builds there.

Another option: have you considered using the Jabber or email notification system? It has more fine-grained event notification:

• build starts
• build succeeds or fails

both generate notifications, from which you can infer build status. Automation around email is straightforward, and Jabber is an open standard so I imagine this is reasonably easy too.

Any of these options would need a little wrapping code to convert to RSS.

Answer 2

Does this summary of a standard XML status format describe what you mean? I'm pretty sure TeamCity can produce this format, but not exactly sure how. Hudson does it with a URL like http://my.hudson.server.example.com:3030/cc.xml.

Answer 3

I've been working on this problem for a little while now

Here's a post showing you how to login to teamcity in code in c#

then its just a matter of using HTMLAgilityPack to look at the table.

if you turn on guest access its even easier. I'm cleaning up the code for release shortly if that helps. If your developing in another language I can help there too.

Answer 4

Probably it is better to write your own plugin. If you know Java of course. You can create custom web controller and bind it to the url you like, this controller can accept buildId parameter, search for a build (SBuildServer.findBuildInstanceById()) and output XML.

Take a look at HelloUserController.java which is in the samplePlugin.zip bundled with TeamCity (TeamCity/devPackage).

Also its worth to check sources of some of the TeamCity plugins: http://www.jetbrains.net/confluence/display/TW/TeamCity+Plugins