Displaying in Jenkins content from workspace text file in build screen - jenkins

Question

I have a Jenkins job that stores artifacts as a post-build action. Within these artifacts is a text file that tells which version of the software has been built. Is it somehow possible in a Jenkins project to get access to this text file and displaying its contents somewhere on the Jenkins build page somehow? This way the build manager would instantly see what software version this archived artifact contains. Thanks!

Answer 1

There are more advanced ways with GroovyScript, but I can suggest something like this:
Use Description Setter plugin. It uses RegEx to look at the console output (build log) for a pattern and sets the description (as seen in screenshot) accordingly.
If you don't have the version already printed in console log, you can print it out with either
cat filename (Linux) or type filename (Windows). No need to store a version text file as an artifact (unless you need it for other purposes)
To answer your question directly, in order to add text to actual build page, you can use Groovy Postbuild plugin, something like this:
def workspace = manager.build.getEnvVars()["WORKSPACE"]
String fileContents = new File('${workspace}/filename.txt').text
manager.createSummary("folder.gif").appendText("${fileContents }")
The plugin page has a lot of examples.

Answer 2

I got a revised proposal. Since all you really want is to include a semantic versioning information in your displayed build name and/or description, there is a simpler way to do this.
First of all I have stumbled upon a plugin that does the extraction of your version from the Maven or SBT build process quite nicely - the Semantic Versioning Plugin. This does what is advertised - extracting the version from POM or whatever and including this as a file and a variable in your build process. So you have the freedom to use both, either include the file in your build process and do what you heart wishes AND/OR use the variable to affect the build flow in Jenkins. Now, because this plugin still have couple of bugs I would like to point you for now to my own build of this plugin with fixes already in that can be obtained from here. I will take my own version down the moment that all fixes will be merged to the official plugin...
Then let's start with the name. As suggested previously the best way to do so is to use the Build Name Setter plugin. In order to use both plugins to set up a name for your build navigate to the configuration of the project and find an option named "Determine Semantic Version for project" in there, activate it and either use the default name of the variable or provide your own. When you're down scroll down a little bit to the option named "Set Build Name" and activate it. By default you will see the regular build naming convention there - #${BUILD_NUMBER}. You can use that variable as well as any other provided by any plugin, but in this specific case you need to use the environment variable that you have named above, i.e.:
#${BUILD_NUMBER} - ${ENV,var="SEMANTIC_VERSION"}
This will set the name of every build to something more meaningful, so in this case it may result in #76 - 0.0.76-SNAPSHOT. Obviously you're free to experiment on your own to tailor the name of the build to specific format you desire. Keep in mind that it might break your page flow a little bit since the name will be longer than usually, therefore it will push that table with latest builds on the left side of the screen as well it will affect your dashboard.
Now, in order to customize your build information further you might want to take a look at Description Setter Plugin as well. Personally, since I have started to investigate this case further, I use the combination of both at this time. You can use the same token expansion as the one listed above, the big difference is that you will need to create/maintain a file that will be used to create the description. What you will include in this description is only limited by all the variables or token published by Jenkins itself or any of the installed plugins (take a look here). Personally I am listing some information gathered from different places as well as some additional stuff created/provided by Maven during the build process. So it's pretty handy.
Both plugins mentioned above (Build Name Setter and Description Setter) can use other sources of information to build the name and description - it can be properties files, etc. For example one can use Job Exporter Plugin to drop a properties files to read all possible information about the build itself in the form of, as example:
${PROPFILE,file="hudsonBuild.properties",property="build.user.name"}
In this case this will resolve to user name of the user who have triggered the build.
Again, any variable visible to Token Macro plugin can be used.