Continuous Integration for PowerBuilder

Automate your CI/CD workflow

Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions for PowerBuilder

Using an Automation Server for Continuous Integration with PowerBuilder

An automation server is meant to automate building, testing, and deploying tasks. It helps implement Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery with your PowerBuilder applications. The automation server landscape has significantly diversified in recent years.

Popular automation servers for PowerBuilder:

Creating a Continuous Integration Workflow (or Pipeline) with an automation server requires configuring several consecutive jobs/tasks. It will trigger each task as specified - for instance when a new build is available - and provide feedback about its execution.

In some cases, a plugin is available to simplify the integration/configuration of a given tool.

Tools & Resources:

PowerBuilder 2025: Enhanced CI/CD

PowerBuilder 2025 brings major improvements that enhance CI/CD for PowerBuilder, making continuous integration faster, simpler, and more robust.

Key CI/CD Features

Feature PowerBuilder 2022 PowerBuilder 2025
Compiler Traditional PBL compiler New high-performance compiler
2-3x faster
Multithreaded compilation with AST system
Source Code Storage Binary PBL proprietary files Plain text source code
Native Git/SVN compatibility
Source code / P-code separation
Git/SVN Integration Standard support Enhanced native integration
Better compatibility and performance
Source code order preservation
CI/CD Support PBAutoBuild220.exe available
Standalone, no IDE license		 Built-in CI/CD workflow support
Enhanced PBAutoBuild250.exe
Streamlined pipelines
Project Conversion "workspace" projects only Automatic conversion
Workspace → Solution
Backward compatibility assured

Project Format Flexibility

PowerBuilder 2025 supports two approaches:

  • "Solution" format: Plain text source code, compatible with the new compiler
  • Traditional "workspace" format: PBL preservation for projects requiring this approach

The format choice depends on specific technical constraints of each project.

PowerBuilder 2025 Tools & Resources:

Step 1: Automated Build Generation

A job can fetch the PowerBuilder code and the PBLs from GIT or SVN repositories. Then, using PBAutoBuild, the automation server can generate a PowerBuilder or PowerServer build.

Multi-platform Configuration

Popular automation servers support PowerBuilder:

Jenkins
  • GIT, SVN, Azure DevOps/TFS plugins
  • Third-party plugin extensibility
  • Docker configurations supported
GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Azure DevOps
  • Native repository integration
  • YAML configuration
  • Cloud and self-hosted runners

If you are using PowerBuilder 2019 or 2017, please refer to this article to learn how to use the previous tool "PowerBuilder Compiler".

Tools & Resources: 

Step 2: Automated Code Inspection with Visual Expert

Your automation server can automate code inspections, either by calling Visual Expert in command line, or by using a Visual Expert plugin if you're using Jenkins.

Tools & Resources: 

Step 3: Automated Testing with AscentialTest

You can also automate the testing of your PowerBuilder and PowerServer applications, either by calling AscentialTest from the command line, or by using the Jenkins or Azure DevOps plug-ins provided by AscentialTest.

Tools & Resources: 

Conclusion

PowerBuilder 2025 marks a major turning point for continuous integration with spectacular performance improvements and a modern approach to source code storage. This evolution, combined with the diversity of available automation servers (Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions), offers PowerBuilder teams unprecedented possibilities for implementing robust and high-performance CI/CD workflows.