1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of software development environments. More specifically, the present invention relates to an environment for iterative software development in which targets can be built from any one of a prioritized list of source files.
2. Background Information
With software companies struggling to beat one another to market with the “latest and greatest” software products and technologies, the need for reduced development times has never been greater. During a typical software development lifecycle, a software development team may go through the steps of analysis, design, construction, and testing before the resulting software application may be successfully deployed. Often times, developers are required to perform numerous iterations of code construction, modification and testing of a design before the product can be deployed. It is often useful for the developer to view and test the results of each incremental software change as it is completed before proceeding to the next change. However, in compiled language environments, the process of rebuilding, deploying and testing complex software projects can be tedious and time consuming. When a large number of iterations is required, the accumulated build and deploy time becomes significant, possibly delaying the release of the software product in a business where short development times are necessary in order to remain competitive.
Accordingly, a number of mechanisms have been employed to speed software generation by reducing development time. For example, integrated development environments (IDE) provide developers with various software development tools for tasks such as editing, compiling, debugging, and so forth. Although IDEs may simplify software development, it is useful to provide iterative software development capabilities at a lower-level, so they are available both inside the IDE and from the command line, where some experienced programmers prefer to work without the overhead often accompanied with IDEs.
Advanced compilers have also been introduced that automate the analysis of complex dependencies between source files in a software project, and that rebuild the minimum subset of the project based on which source files have changed. However, these compilers only work for a single type of source file (e.g., C++ or Java), must be manually activated each time compilation is needed and don't have any way to rapidly determine whether rebuild is needed without performing a dependency analysis.
Therefore, further improvements in the area of iterative software development are desired.
The present invention will be described by way of exemplary embodiments, but not limitations, illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which like references denote similar elements, and in which:
In the following description, various aspects of the present invention will be described. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced with only some or all aspects of the present invention. For purposes of explanation, specific numbers, materials and configurations are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will also be apparent to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without the specific details. In other instances, well-known features are omitted or simplified in order not to obscure the present invention.
Parts of the description will be presented in terms of operations performed by a processor based device, using terms such as receiving, determining, generating, and the like, consistent with the manner commonly employed by those skilled in the art to convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. As well understood by those skilled in the art, the quantities take the form of electrical, magnetic, or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, and otherwise manipulated through mechanical and electrical components of the processor based device; and the term processor include microprocessors, micro-controllers, digital signal processors, and the like, that are standalone, adjunct or embedded.
Various operations will be described as multiple discrete steps in turn, in a manner that is most helpful in understanding the present invention, however, the order of description should not be construed as to imply that these operations are necessarily order dependent. In particular, these operations need not be performed in the order of presentation. Further, the description repeatedly uses the phrase “in one embodiment”, which ordinarily does not refer to the same embodiment, although it may.
The present invention may be advantageously employed to reduce iterative software development cycles. In one embodiment of the invention, a build environment is provided to perform modified dependency analyses for use in building an application and all the files on which it depends from one or more source files using a set of prioritized build rules. In one embodiment, the build rules indicate how different types of target files can be generated from different source file types (e.g., a “.class” file can be built from a “.java” file using the java compiler). A given target file type may be associated with several rules, each having a different priority, for building the target from different source file types. In one embodiment, if more than one source file exists that can be used to generate a given target file, the rule with the highest priority is used. In one embodiment, the build environment identifies how to generate a particular target file by identifying the highest priority rule for which an associated source file type exists. Moreover, the build environment identifies the presence of a new source file having a corresponding build rule with a higher priority than that of the source file type(s) previously used in the generation of the target file. In one embodiment of the invention, the target file is rebuilt if such a new source file with a higher priority is identified, or if one or more source files previously used to build the target file are determined to have been modified more recently than that indicated by the build date/time of the target file itself.
To build the requested application, request processor 104 invokes build environment 106 passing the name of the application as the build target. Build environment 106 represents a build environment advantageously modified with the teachings of the present invention to perform modified dependency analysis during the generation of a target file. During the modified dependency analysis process, build environment 106 finds the source file associated with the target using a designated source path and examines the external dependencies (e.g., via well-known variable type analysis techniques) of the source file to identify external target files on which the source file depends. The source path is used to find source files to build targets while the search path is used to find requested applications. In some environments, the source path may be the same as the search path or it may differ from the search path. In turn, build environment 106 recursively examines the dependencies of each external target file, until all external dependencies are identified (i.e., the transitive closure of application dependencies).
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, as build environment 106 recursively identifies all external dependencies of the original target file, build environment 106 builds missing target files using prioritized build rules within rule set 105 and populates two data structures, named rebuildIfNewer and rebuildIfExists, with meta-data 109, to record the list of dependencies. In one embodiment, rule set 105 describes a prioritized list of candidate rules, one for each source file type that can be used to generate the target file. In one embodiment, the prioritized list of rules is sorted by priority. The rule priorities may be assigned by a developer depending upon the functionality enabled by each source file type and the desired functionality for the target file. Of course, the set of rules can be arranged in any order so long as the relative priority of each rule is preserved. In one embodiment, build environment 106 iterates through each of the rules in rule set 105 associated with the current target type in priority order. For each rule, build environment 106 determines whether the rule can be used to build the target file by searching the source path for a source file of the type required by the rule and a name matching that of the target file. If an appropriate source file is found, the rule is used to build the target, and the source file location (name and path) is stored within the rebuildifNewer data structure before the rule search ends. However, if an appropriate source file is not found, the expected source file location (name and path) is stored within the rebuildIfExists data structure, and the rule search process continues with the next highest priority rule. This process continues until a rule has been identified for building each required target file from the set of available source files. If the build process cannot determine an appropriate rule to build one of the required target files, the build process exits with an error. Once application 107 is generated, build environment 106 associates metadata 109, including the rebuildIfNewer and rebuildIfExists data structures containing dependencies, with application 107 and passes application 107 to execution engine 110 for execution. In one embodiment, application 107 contains a reference to the location of metadata 109, whereas in an alternative embodiment, metadata 109 is itself embedded within application 107. In one embodiment metadata 109 is stored in persisted data structures. By storing the metadata in data structures that are persisted, the metadata can be used in association with subsequent rebuilds of the application without requiring the build environment to perform additional dependency analyses, thereby expediting the build process and further decreasing the development time.
The above description is based upon the assumption that the requested application did not exist within a designated search path. However, in accordance with one embodiment of the invention, if it is determined that an application corresponding to the request does exist, request processor 104 makes a determination based upon one or more criteria, as to whether a rebuild of the application is needed prior to the application being executed. In one embodiment, a determination as to whether a rebuild of the application is needed is based upon whether the source files listed in the rebuildifNewer data structure of meta-data 109 have been modified more recently than the most recent build date/time of the application. In one embodiment, the build date/time of each source file listed in the rebuildifNewer data structure is compared against the most recent application build date/time, and if any of the corresponding source files have a date/time that is more recent than the application build date/time, the application is rebuilt. Similarly, in one embodiment a search of the designated source path is performed to determine if any source files listed in the rebuildIfExists data structure of meta-data 109 (i.e. those source files having a higher priority than the source files used to build the application) now exist in the designated source path. If so, a rebuild of the application is automatically triggered.
If the source file required to build the target with the selected rule does not exist (block 404), the expected location (name and path) of the missing source file is stored into the rebuildIfExists data structure (block 408). If there are additional rules remaining in rule set 105 that have not been selected (block 410), the rule with the next highest relative priority (i.e. the highest priority remaining) is selected and the process continues (block 412). If no rules are remaining, the build process terminates and generates an error indicating it was not able to build the requested target using the rules provided and available source files (block 414). In one embodiment, this process continues until all external dependencies are identified and built or the build environment identifies a target that cannot be built.
In one embodiment, the request is received by servlet container 602 and processed by servlet 604. In one embodiment, servlet 604 represents a servlet designed to receive web service requests and parse the requests to identify the application required to respond to the request. In one embodiment, servlet 604 determines whether an application corresponding to the indicated URL exists within the search path and dispatches the request according to the result. For example, if a corresponding application does exist within the search path, servlet 604 first determines whether the application needs to be rebuilt as described above (see e.g.
Thus, it can be seen from the above description, an environment for iterative software development with prioritized build rules has been described. While the present invention has been described referencing the illustrated and above enumerated embodiments, the present invention is not limited to these described embodiments. Numerous modification and alterations may be made, consistent with the scope of the present invention as set forth in the claims to follow. Thus, the above-described embodiments are merely illustrative, and not restrictive on the present invention.
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
Parent | 10082795 | Feb 2002 | US |
Child | 11142897 | May 2005 | US |