How to display the time it took to run a build in Jenkins?

Question

I\'m configuring a process of Android application build by using Jenkins pipeline.

At the beginning and the end of the build, a message is sent to a relevant Slack c

Answer 1

Since this jenkins-pipeline script is in Groovy you can simply use new Date() on it. Something like this "Current time ${new Date()}" on the message argument must work:

slackSend (channel: '#slack-test', color: 'warning', message: "Current time ${new Date()}")

This will produce the follow message in your channel:

Current time: Thu Oct 13 17:25:12 CEST 2016

If you want a specific date format you can use format(String format) method, for example "${new Date().format('dd/MM/yyyy')}":

slackSend (channel: '#slack-test', color: 'warning', message: "Current time ${new Date().format('dd/MM/yyyy')}")

This instead will produce the follow message:

Current time: 13/10/2016

UPDATE

Since you don't want to use any external plugins a possible way to do so (it's a little tricky) it's to save the start time in a file using the follow script in your jenkins-pipeline:

def f = new File("/tmp/buildStart.txt")
def start = new Date().format('dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss')
f.text = start
slackSend color: 'red', message: "Build start at ${start}"

Then in an other jenkins-pipeline where your build finish, parse the date from the file and get the difference with the current time:

def f = new File("/tmp/buildStart.txt")
def startDate = new Date().parse('dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss',f.text)
def endDate = new Date()
def tookTime = groovy.time.TimeCategory.minus(endDate,startDate).toString()
slackSend color: 'red', message: "Total time: ${tookTime}"