Windows Developer Power Tools

12.1 Creating Consistent Builds with NAnt

Creating top-notch software and preparing a package for delivery involves much more than just hitting Ctrl-Shift-B in Visual Studio. You must ensure you have the most current version of code from your source-control environment, verify that your unit and acceptance tests run and pass, generate documentation, create install packages, run static analyses on your assemblies.... You get the picture.

Running all of these steps manually is difficult, for any number of reasons. Piecing them together is time-consuming, the process is fraught with opportunities to miss a step or perform one incorrectly, and it’s extremely difficult to get new team members up to speed quickly on the steps they’ll need to do manually. Furthermore, manual execution of all these steps kills any assurances that your process is stable and repeatable.

NAnt is a build tool for .NET applications that can help take the pain away. It was originally based on the Java Ant build tool, but the two tools have significantly diverged since NAnt’s inception. The description on Ant’s home page still applies, though: “it is kind of like Make, but without Make’s wrinkles.” Instead of hideously confusing makefiles, NAnt (like Ant) uses XML to define and control processes.

NAnt at a Glance
Tool	NAnt
Version covered	0.85RC4
Home page	http://nant.sourceforge.net
Power Tools page	http://www.windevpowertools.com/tools/49 ...