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2008-02-16

Building Delphi programs using Want

I've recently been trying to get some Delphi code into continuous integration using want. As there's very little available documentation on the net on this subject, I decided to collect what I've found out.

Want is an ant-like build tool for Delphi. It's available from sourceforge.net, but if you want the latest and greatest binaries, you might (at the time I'm writing this) just as well download it from this confluence page. There's also a jira issue tracker on the same site. You'd most likely also want to have a look at a new page about want available here:www.optimax.com/want/, and the forums that are available at the same site. Although want is no longer maintained by the original author, it seems he's still frequenting the forums. Seems like Delphi build tools is a rather odd topic, so there's almost no flaming and also few pleeeaase help me! topics :)

I'd also like to link to some articles that talk about want. Here's one from CODEGEAR, and from elvenware.

If you're serious about using want for your Delphi builds, the best thing you can do is probably read the builds scripts from the want project itself, and from the DUnit project. They are both easily available from this page: www.suigeneris.org/kb/display/WANT/Home.

Finally: Don't forget to have a look at these alternatives: NAnt (open source) and FinalBuilder (commercial). Here's an example of how to build a Delphi project with Nant and CruiseControl.Net: Extreme Programming in a Delphi Context.

Have you used want, tried to get Delphi into continuous integration?

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