When you need to continuously poll for a repository without using a system like Jenkins, the most simple batch commands can be used with the windows scheduler.

Open CMD and move to directory

C:\projects\wogl

I created a file called clone.bat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Git\bin\git.exe clone ssh://john@project.vislab.usyd.edu.au/Groups/WOGL/wogl.git
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if ssh is setup correctly, then the project will appear. See ssh guide in https://sites.google.com/a/vislab.net/vislab-home/resources/jenkins-continuous-integration.

I created another file called expected_for_no_changes.txt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Already up-to-date.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I created another file called poll_scm.bat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Git\bin\date.exe >> C:\projects\wogl\log.txt

cd C:\projects\wogl\wogl
C:\Git\bin\git.exe reset --hard
C:\Git\bin\git.exe pull > C:\projects\wogl\last_pull.txt

C:\Git\bin\diff.exe C:\projects\wogl\last_pull.txt C:\projects\wogl\expected_for_no_changes.txt > C:\projects\wogl\changes.txt

timeout 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) This batch file logs the date of the last pull (to be checked later).

2) The project is pulled and the resulting text is placed in a file called last_pull.txt

3) A diff is done between the output of the git pull result and the expected_for_no_changes.txt

 - If there are no changes the file C:\projects\wogl\changes.txt will be empty

Setup the windows schedule task to run at a given interval.

So that should poll fine for the interval set.


To integrate with the automated testing, you can also create a script that checks if there were any changes.

I created another file called launch_tests.bat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REM get the length of changes.txt
for %%a in (changes.txt) do (
set length=%%~za
)
echo lenght is  %length%

REM if empty, quit
if %length% == 0 (
    echo nope!!!
    timeout 12
    exit
)

REM run tests from here

echo gonna do stuff now...

REM don't allow changes to run again
del changes.txt
C:\Git\bin\touch.exe changes.txt

timeout 25
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that in windows, doing things is a little bit ugly.