traceImportant produces a normal message in TeamCity

[otto-gebb]

traceImportant produces a normal message in TeamCity, although it should produce a warning.

Repro steps

1. Set TEAMCITY_VERSION environment variable to 1.
2. Run a FAKE script with a traceImportant call in it.

Expected behavior

The message is logged as

##teamcity[message text='your_message_here' status='WARNING']

Actual behavior

The message is logged as

your_message_here

Known workarounds

Use this function instead of traceImportant:

let logWarning str =
  let inline escape text =
    text
    |> String.replace "|" "||"
    |> String.replace "'" "|'"
    |> String.replace "\n" "|n"
    |> String.replace "\r" "|r"
    |> String.replace "[" "|["
    |> String.replace "]" "|]"
  if isLocalBuild
  then Trace.traceImportant str
  else Trace.logfn "##teamcity[message text='%s' status='WARNING']" <| escape str

Related information

• TeamCity docs: Reporting Messages For Build Log

[BlythMeister]

To extend this, error also doesn't work as status should be error.

[matthid]

@BlythMeister So when you (or any api you use) uses traceError you expect the build to fail?

[BlythMeister]

No, but reporting a message as an error message doesn't make build fail (I don't think)

There is another issue that when a target ends with a failure result, the TeamCity listener should post an build failure with the close block error message. (I think)

[BlythMeister]

As far as I know, in TeamCity 'ERROR' != 'FAILURE'

[matthid]

@BlythMeister Can you verified that?

[otto-gebb]

@BlythMeister A build definition has a setting in the "Failure conditions" that looks like "Fail build when errors are logged".

[BlythMeister]

Ahh yeah, I never have that enabled 😂

[matthid]

The reason why I asked is because we tried to change stuff there in there past and usually people start to complain that there builds are failing (even when they should fix their builds)

[matthid]

Or put differently, when we decide to do it I'll probably close those issues with "by-design" or have a workaround ready ;)
We are not reverting afterwards like we did in the past (people can lock the old versions of the module), but we should be sure we are doing the right thing.

[matthid]

We could for example add documentation for the TeamCity option if that already exists.

[otto-gebb]

We can start by changing just the behavior of traceImportant, that would generate a warning. Warnings do not fail the build. Can we?

[matthid]

@otto-gebb I just want to discuss and decide this once and for all, we changed to policy countless times in the past, reverted releases/prs and I want this to end :)

[otto-gebb]

@matthid I get it. In my opinion traceError should produce an error in TeamCity. If this breaks the build for someone, they should turn off the "fail build on error logged" setting. Still, logging of warning may be considered to be an independent concern.

[BlythMeister]

Reporting Messages For Build Log

You can report messages for a build log in the following way:

##teamcity[message text='' errorDetails='' status='']

where:

The status attribute may take following values: NORMAL, WARNING, FAILURE, ERROR. The default value is NORMAL.

The errorDetails attribute is used only if status is ERROR, in other cases it is ignored.

This message fails the build in case its status is ERROR and "Fail build if an error message is logged by build runner" box is checked on the Build Failure Conditions page of a build configuration. For example:

[BlythMeister]

Quote fail .. but that is from the TeamCity docs on status messages.

[BlythMeister]

@matthid I'm happy to raise a pr to make fake work to how the TeamCity docs state.
We can then quote TeamCity docs as a "works as designed"

[matthid]

@BlythMeister Yes that would be very welcome, feel free to update the docs (=api docs for the teamcity module similar to the TeamFoundation one) as well (just link to official docs)

[BlythMeister]

@matthid this would extend on @otto-gebb pr to include trace error and a "block" ending with a failure.
@otto-gebb, I'll base my branch off of yours and raise it tomorrow. 👍

[otto-gebb]

Currently this functionality is broken again, except it's even worse: traceImportant produces no message at all. @matthid should I create a separate bug?

[matthid]

Yes please, you can link back here. Also I'd love to get help on this....