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Old 10-18-2006, 06:52 PM
mike_laff mike_laff is online now
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Join Date: 10-18-2006
Posts: 3
Exclamation Failure handling in groups and subroutines

I've used your product now for a few weeks to attempt produce a complex build of a number of projects. However, I find the error handling of groups and subroutines in general very confusing and in a complex project (with error handling!) it appears that groups and subroutines are relatively useless.

For example, in both groups and subroutines, exactly what effect do the "On Step Failure" properties do? Groups and subroutines never fail!

If this does nothing surely it should be removed (on groups/subs) to avoid confusion and time wasting trying to use them. However, use of these properties could be made valuable by extending them with an option to exit from the group/subroutine with a status. I believe this would be an extremely useful enhancement.

ie. Build failure steps: [ ] (blank for all)
(o) continue building or
(o) exit group/subroutine with success (?)
(o) exit group/subroutine with fail

For a basic example of why this would be used....

I wish to build 20 projects. Each project requires a version change, a VC build and a setup built. I create a subroutine to do these 3 steps (could be 10 or more in reality) and call the subroutine 20 times from the main project steps using parameters. Naturally, there is no point trying to build the setup if the VC build fails but I do wish the other 20 projects to be allowed their own attempt at building. With diligent use of the "Continue building" option and lots of conditional build rules, I have actually managed to achieve this but it was very cumbersome for a requirement that seems so basic.

Apart from this one semi-serious failing, however, it's a magic product - keep up the good work
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