How do you handle multiple projects that form the same product(s)?

Question

I have limited experience when it comes to build and version control systems. I feel like I've run into a common problem but I'm having trouble uncovering how it is typically handled.

Say you have four source code projects:

• fooLib - Shared library
• fizzLib - Shared library
• buzzApp - Application that depends on fooLib
• barApp - Application that depends on fizzLib and fooLib

Now, say you have two products:

• ProductA - only needs buzzApp
• ProductB - only needs barApp

If my task were to make bug fixes to ProductB, how would I go about checking out the projects? Am I supposed to figure out the dependencies (or look them up) or is there some automated way of doing this? Also, how could this be automated for nightly builds for each product?

Answer 1

This depends upon two things:

• which version control system are you using?
• which build system are you using?

For a project like this I can not over-recommend Jenkins. It will monitor your version control system, pull the changes as they are made, build the libraries, then the final products as needed.

The way I've done (and seen this done) is to create four separate projects in your version control system.

The build system for the libraries creates the final library (.so or .lib depending upon need). The final build result is published to a shared drive or shared server for everyone to access.

On the build server for the application, the libraries would be installed from the final packaging for the build process.

I've seen attempts to build master build scripts to do all four steps in one go. But the hand-built script tend to be very fragile. Use Jenkins. It'll save your sanity.