Customize Team Build 2010 – Part 8: Send information to the build log?

In the series the following parts have been published

1. Part 1: Introduction
2. Part 2: Add arguments and variables
3. Part 3: Use more complex arguments
4. Part 4: Create your own activity
5. Part 5: Increase AssemblyVersion
6. Part 6: Use custom type for an argument
7. Part 7: How is the custom assembly found
8. Part 8: Send information to the build log
9. Part 9: Impersonate activities (run under other credentials)
10. Part 10: Include Version Number in the Build Number
11. Part 11: Speed up opening my build process template
12. Part 12: How to debug my custom activities
13. Part 13: Get control over the Build Output
14. Part 14: Execute a PowerShell script
15. Part 15: Fail a build based on the exit code of a console application
16. Part 16: Specify the relative reference path

In the build you can set the verbosity to different levels to get diagnostic information from the activities that are executed. The information from the activities that come out of the box are great, but if you could add your own diagnostic information would be wonderful.

To add this information is pretty simple.

1. Add a reference to the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow assembly. You can find it in the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies
2. Then add a using statement to the namespace Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.Activities
3. You can now add the line context.TrackMessage(“My diagnostic information”); to show the information in the build log. You can also specify the importance of the message to indicate in which Verbosity it will be shown. The following table shows when the message will be shown.
   
   

   Verbosity	Importance
   Minimal	-
   Normal	High
   Detailed	Normal
   Diagnostic	Low

I created an activity with an argument that reports that argument back to the build log, also with the different possibilities of presenting the information.

using System.Activities;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client;
using Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.Activities;
 
namespace BuildTasks.Activities
{
 
    [BuildActivity(HostEnvironmentOption.All)]
    public sealed class DiagnosticInformation : CodeActivity
    {
        public InArgument<string> TextIn { get; set; }
 
        protected override void Execute(CodeActivityContext context)
        {
            string textIn = context.GetValue(this.TextIn);
 
            context.TrackBuildMessage("Message: " + textIn);
            context.TrackBuildMessage("Message (High importance): " + textIn, BuildMessageImportance.High);
            context.TrackBuildMessage("Message (Normal importance): " + textIn, BuildMessageImportance.Normal);
            context.TrackBuildMessage("Message (Low importance): " + textIn, BuildMessageImportance.Low);
            context.TrackBuildError(textIn);
            context.TrackBuildWarning(textIn);
        }
    }
}

When you run add the activity to your Build Process Template and run the build, you will see the following result for the different verbosities.

Verbosity	Result
Diagnostic
Detailed
Normal
Minimal

You can download the full solution at BuildProcess.zip. It will include the sources of every part and will continue to evolve.