Build server / continuous integration recommendation for C++ / Qt-based projects

Here you can read a quick example:

Continuous Integration Server - Hudson

I think that Hudson, jenkins and builbot are worth a try. Wasting a day or two evaluating and trying them with a quick example will help you to choose confidently.

I'm using buildbot for this. I've been using it for 4 years, and I feel very happy with it.

It is an application written in python, that runs on a server and can manage multiple clients on various OSes. I'm currently using Windows XP, Windows 7, Debian, Ubuntu and CentOS build slaves. My projects are C++, and one of them (the end user GUI) is made in Python. But we've also integrated with other frameworks, for other features than GUI.

What is really good about buildbot is that it works by running command lines on slaves. With this, you can do whatever you want. Even on Windows systems to compile using Visual Studio! From these command lines, you get all the output centralized on the server, and accessible.

You may also find alternatives on this site that references many of them. Disclaimer: I looked at it 3 years ago, I don't know if it is still accurate.

Most of the tools I'm seeing seem to be catered to Java (Jenkins, CruiseControl, etc.) or .Net (CruiseControl.net, etc.) Can those be used with a C++ toolchain, or will I constantly be fighting the system? Anything that you have used in the past and found works well with Qt / C++?

Any reasonably capable CI system will have a piece that will allow you to execute any program you want for your build command.

Here's what I would consider:

• Does the CI system run on your system(s) of choice
• Does it allow you an easy way to view your logs
• Does it integrate with your test runner
• Does it integrate with your code coverage reports (e.g. BullseyeCoverage w/C++ & Qt)
• Will it publish your files in a manner sensible for your needs
• Will at provide an archive/store of files, if necessary (e.g. pdbs & lib*.so.debug)
• If the CI system doesn't support feature X, will you have to write it for each supported OS/system
• Is the CI system / UI easy for you to use.

I did the above using CruiseControl and most things were pretty easy. I wrote everything in make or qmake and simply called out to the command that I needed executed. For unit test and code coverage integration I output stuff to XML and transformed it to something supported by CruiseControl.

My recommendation, take a look at the recommended CI systems and examine them based on the criteria above.

I use Jenkins for building and packaging many C++ projects, based on qmake, cmake, and makefiles.

There are plugins for cmake, qmake, and msbuild, but any command line scripts can be run as well.

I have done packaging using Jenkins with no problems, as it is just another command line step in a project.

There are good plugins for monitoring the number of warnings/errors produced by the compiler (I normally use GCC).

It also has matrix builds which allow you to build a project several times with different combinations of compiler flags, pre-processor variables, platform, etc. One project I set up is a matrix build with 5 boolean preprocessor flags on two platforms, which then does 2^6=64 builds. These can take a bit of setting up to get correct.