Log to Variable and large logs

FinalBuilder Discussion
1

When building VS2003 solutions, we have been logging the output of the action to a variable, that way, if the action fails, the contents of the build can be fired off to the developer so that they can see where the build failed.

We recently changed over to VS2005 and the output generated during a build has dramatically increased...to such an extent that the "Log to Variable" option cannot hold all the information generated.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to another way to capture all the output from an action (in this case, the "Build VS.Net Solution" action)

 

Thanks.

2

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your post. Sorry to hear you’re having problems.

I’m curious as to what you mean by “cannot hold all the information generated?” A FinalBuilder variable should be able to hold at least 2Gb of output, assuming this much virtual memory is available. What error are you receiving when you try to log to variable?

Regards,


Angus

3

It's odd...if I use the "Build VS.Net Solution" action and set it to build VS2003, it logs to variable properly.

Change the same action to VS2005 and point it at a VS2005 solution...and the variable stays empty (or retains whatever value it already had).

So, perhaps not a size issue but something else instead?

To test, I made a simple ActionList with 2 actions, build the solution and write the log variable to a text file.

Point at a VS2003 solution, works just fine.  Point the same project at a VS2005, no log file....

-Eric

4

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the reply. I’m not really sure what the difference is here. Logging to variable should be happening at a very high level compared to action-specific functionality like the Visual Studio version.

Do you see the output from the action in the actual FinalBuilder log (ie under Build Log?)

Regards,

Angus

5

I use the “Build VS.NET Solution” action set to VS2005, “Use MSBuild” unchecked, and it works fine. My solution has 40 projects, and the resulting log is around 82KB.

-Mike

6

Well, I've done a little more testing.  (brand new project using FB5 v5.5.0.518)

Seems the action logs properly when using the "Build VS.Net Solution" most of the time.  If  I change the Configuration to "Release|Any CPU" or "Release|Mixed Platforms" we no longer get the log saved to the variable.  "Release|.Net" works though....

Same results if using Debug mode, with or without the use of MSBuild.

In all cases, the solution compile log displays in the "Build Log" tab and shows up in the Build History...

 

 

7

Hi Eric,

I can’t explain this offhand. Could you please send us your FinalBuilder project and log files (.fbp5/.fbz5 and .fbl5) so we can take a look at it? Send them to support at finalbuilder dot com.

Thanks.

Regards,

Angus

8

For future reference, Eric sent me the log and we uncovered the issue.

The variable that the action was logging to was set to “Make Available as Environment Variable.” This means that the variable is stored as a Windows Environment Variable, not a FinalBuilder variable. The maximum length for these is 32,767 characters. If you attempt to set one to a larger string, Windows blanks it out entirely.