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We have several automated build scripts, some of which are run automatically every 2 hours, and some of which are only ever run manually.

If a build script is started manually while another is already running, it can cause...problems. Such as merging untested branches into the production branch.

I'd like to prevent this happening again, and the simplest solution in my mind is to have each build script start by checking that another is not currently running.

Is there a way in ant to directly check if another ant instance/script is currently running?

If not, what's the simplest way to add such a check? My first thought is a file created at the beginning and deleted at the end of a build. I'd prefer a way that handles user-cancelled builds nicely, but it's not necessary. It needs to work if a build succeeded and if a build failed (but was not killed by the user).

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If these are separate Ant processes, then I think the only solution is to define a lockfile of some sort that each Ant process needs to acquire before it can continue.

Perhaps the tempfile task could be used for this?

Actually, a sort-of semaphore based on a directory might be better because the tempfile really is a unique tempfile. The first thing your script does is use mkdir to create a shared resource directory name, but it only does this if the directory does not exist.

Upon exit it invokes delete on this shared resource name.

The idea is that the content and name of the directory is meaningless -- it only serves as an "IPC" cooperative locking mechanism.

This isn't particularly elegant, but I think your only other option is to set up a build server that handles scheduled and continuous builds based on various triggers. One that many people use is Jenkins (or has it been renamed?)

[Update]

Perhaps Do I have a way to check the existence of a directory in Ant (not a file)? would do the trick?

To be honest, this approach may work in the short term, but it just moves the problem around. Instead of resetting unit test results you'll be removing lockfiles by hand to get builds working again. My advice is to set up a CI build system, but I recognize this is a fair amount of work (and introduces a whole different set of future problems.)

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  • I ended up putting a lock file check/creation/deletion in the Windows batch file we use to start ant, but it's the exact same principle. – Mar May 27 '15 at 17:02