Failure Steps
 

I currently use the failure step to send a failure message via email
to the responsible user if a build fails.

Is there a way under visual build pro (4.6b) to continue the build
process after it notifies the user ?

It would be nice if there were a failure in step 10, that it would
notify someone, but continue through the other 60 steps. That way I could leave it to run unattended overnight, and always have the latest graetest code (that would compile) waiting on us in the
morning.

Ignoring the fail condition, does not fire the Failure Step, and no
notification is produced.

Create a group after the step that might fail and check the
%LASTSTEP_STATUS% system macro. Depending on what the step is the return code will be different. Also you will have to check the ignore failure box on the step that might fail. Then under this new group you can add your e-mail step and still continue on.

Let me know if this works for you.

Tom Kielty
Senior Software Engineer
Research And Development
tom.kielty@spanlink.com
(763) 971-2134
Fax: (763) 971-2334

Spanlink Communications
7125 Northland Terrace, Suite 100
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota 55428
(763) 971-2000

There are a couple ways to stop the build from within a build:
1) a Run Program step with a bogus command-line;
2) a Run Script step with the code:
Err.Raise 1, Step.Name, "Step failure message" ' VBScript, or
throw 1; // JScript

The drawback to this approach in your case is that the step that actually failed would be marked successful and the user would need to manually uncheck/recheck and start the build from that step after fixing the problem.

Since you want to conditionally cause a build to stop on failure based on the whether the build is GUI/console, another option would be to modify the 'Ignore failure' flag of the ISStep before it gets built. Set the step to not ignore failure (so that it will stop if it fails when built in the GUI), and add a Run Script step right before it with this code (VBScript):

If Application.Context = vbldContextCommandLine Then
Project.Steps(Step.Type)(Builder.BuildIndex+1).Ign oreFailure = True
End If