newbie team city questions

Question

I am working with team city for CI and very happy with it. I use it to build from Tfs and build my code. As a newbie, I have some questions.

1. I have a version info that my app uses for version number. How can I increment this on each build?
2. I run code analysis and style cop analysis against my code. The settings file for these are located outside of the solution as they are shared across multiple solutions. How best can these be referenced for the builds? Can a directory where they reside be pulled with the source code to build?
3. is there any way to generate a release notes document after each build pulled from tfs checkins?

Answer 1

1. You can do this using TeamCity, here is the relevant question: Assembly Versioning with TeamCity

2. Having not used TFS I can't say for sure how to do this, however from the look of things this guide's section(s) on "Workplace Mapping" seem to match up to how we pull files like this into our projects for TeamCity builds: http://tfsguide.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Chapter%206%20-%20Managing%20Source%20Control%20Dependencies%20in%20Visual%20Studio%20Team%20System&ProjectName=tfsguide

3. Not out of the box, you will have to build this yourself using whatever script you prefer (MSBuild, Command line etc) and calling the relevant commands on TFS: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z51z7zy0(v=vs.80).aspx

Answer 2

To answer question 2.

You could create a build configuration which publishes the settings files as artefacts. Each configuration which needs these settings files could then have both a snapshot dependency and an artefact dependency on this project. When setting the artefact dependency you want to select 'from the same build chain'.

For more information on dependencies, please see section 'Using Artifact and Snapshot Dependencies Together' in http://blogs.jetbrains.com/teamcity/2012/04/24/teamcity-build-dependencies-2/

Answer 3

1. You could use "Defining and Using Build Parameters in Build Configuration" to define environment variable current build id. Check available values in Predefined Build Parameters.
2. You can use more than one VCS Roots, and checkout configs form shared root.
3. Only using your script.