How to set an environment variable programmatically in Jenkins/Hudson?

Question

I have two scripts in the pre-build step in a Jenkins job, the first one a perl script, the second a system groovy script using the groovy plugin. I need information from the first perl script in my second groovy script. I think the best way would be to set some environment variable, and was wondering how that can be realized.

Or any other better way.

Thanks for your time.

Genevivegenevra

This question involves project-specific environment variables, but for global environment variables, please see this answer. – Selfinduced

Answer 1

The way to propagate environment variables among build steps is via EnvInject Plugin.

Here are some previous answers that show how to do it:

• How to set environment variables in Jenkins?
• Jenkins : Report results of intermediate [windows batch] build steps in email body

In your case, however, it may be simpler just to write to a file in one build step and read that file in another. To make sure you do not accidentally read from a previous version of the file you can incorporate BUILD_ID in the file name.

Goddess

Workspace is always separate for each build so there is no need to add a build_id. If you will add build_id you will end up with a lot of files eventually. It's better to simply start by removing old file if it exists (or simply overwrite it). – Duron

It really depends on your use case. If you want to preserve the content of the file for a later usage you need to add the build-id in the file name. If you will only use the latest build info, then you can always replace it. – Iminourea

Answer 2

Using EnvInject Plugin from job configuration you should use Inject environment variables to the build process / Evaluated Groovy script.

Depending on the setup you may execute Groovy or shell command and save it in map containing environment variables:

Example

By either getting command result with execute method:

return [DATE: 'date'.execute().text]

or with Groovy equivalent if one exists:

return [DATE: new Date()]

Guncotton