Task: Make cross-OS build script

[NightOwl888]

We currently have a .bat script file to launch the build from the command line that wraps a Powershell file. Clearly, since .bat is Windows-only, we will need to make a .sh script file in order to be able to build on other operating systems.

The actual build.bat file does nothing more than read command line parameters (in any order they are entered), setting defaults where appropriate, and then launch Powershell with the PSake module.

While we could provide instructions to launch the Powershell script using when not running on Windows, the command structure would be simpler for end users if they had a similar build.sh wrapper script with the same inputs as the build.bat file (and if it is possible to use the .sh file on Windows, simply eliminate the .bat file).

Note that the build.ps script also generates a replacement build.bat file that eliminates the version and packageVersion parameters when building a release. This ensures a release distribution's build.bat file will always build the current release version unless the user manually updates the version.props file that is also in the release distribution. build.ps will need to be updated to generate a build.sh file during a release for the same reasons.

[Shazwazza]

On a side note - the docs building process will need to remain as windows only for now just because docfx 2 is a netframework project.

[miiitch]

Hi, I working on build process on Linux boxes. powershell core works fine on it. Have you considered running powershell core for non windows build? There are limitations that I'm not aware of maybe.

[NightOwl888]

@miiitch

Yes, to my knowledge running the build.ps1 file using Powershell core should work fine. But that script is not well documented, the commands to call it are more verbose, and the parameters vs properties to pass are a bit confusing to use and prone to change over time.

Call to build.ps1 directly to run tests on Powershell core

pwsh -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& { Import-Module ./build/psake.psm1; Invoke-Psake ./build/build.ps1 Build,Test -properties @{ configuration='Release';maximumParalellJobs=10 } -parameters @{ packageVersion='4.8.0-beta00013' } }"

build.bat is documented on the README and requires simpler syntax to use than running build.ps1. Ideally, we would just be able to type build on any OS in the release distribution to build the source from scratch and build -t to run the tests. This currently only works on Windows.

Same command using build.bat

build -t -config:Release -mp 10 -pv:4.8.0-beta00013

Running the command on a clone of the repo requires PackageVersion argument to be supplied. The release distribution doesn't accept a PackageVersion parameter and only builds a specific version that is defined in the Version.proj file of the release.

This issue is mainly about usability, not functionality.