This package contains Rake, a simple ruby build program with capabilities similar to make.
Rake has the following features:
Rakefiles (rake’s version of Makefiles) are completely defined in standard Ruby syntax. No XML files to edit. No quirky Makefile syntax to worry about (is that a tab or a space?)
Users can specify tasks with prerequisites.
Rake supports rule patterns to synthesize implicit tasks.
Flexible FileLists that act like arrays but know about manipulating file names and paths.
A library of prepackaged tasks to make building rakefiles easier. For example, tasks for building tarballs and publishing to FTP or SSH sites. (Formerly tasks for building RDoc and Gems were included in rake but they’re now available in RDoc and RubyGems respectively.)
Supports parallel execution of tasks.
Download and install rake with the following.
gem install rake
First, you must write a “Rakefile” file which contains the build rules. Here’s a simple example:
task :default => [:test] task :test do ruby "test/unittest.rb" end
This Rakefile has two tasks:
A task named “test”, which - upon invocation - will run a unit test file in Ruby.
A task named “default”. This task does nothing by itself, but it has exactly one dependency, namely the “test” task. Invoking the “default” task will cause Rake to invoke the “test” task as well.
Running the “rake” command without any options will cause it to run the “default” task in the Rakefile:
% ls Rakefile test/ % rake (in /home/some_user/Projects/rake) ruby test/unittest.rb ....unit test output here...
Type “rake –help” for all available options.
For details on Rake’s command-line invocation, read doc/command_line_usage.rdoc
For details on writing Rakefiles, see doc/rakefile.rdoc.
For the original announcement of Rake, see doc/rational.rdoc.
For a glossary of terms, see doc/glossary.rdoc.
Rake is currently hosted at github. The github web page is github.com/jimweirich/rake. The public git clone URL is
git://github.com/jimweirich/rake.git
If you wish to run the unit and functional tests that come with Rake:
Install the ‘flexmock’ gem
Install the ‘session’ gem in order to run the functional tests.
CD into the top project directory of rake.
Type one of the following:
rake # If you have a version of rake installed ruby -Ilib bin/rake # If you do not have a version of rake installed.
Feature requests and bug reports can be made here
Issues and bug reports can also be tracked here:
Rake Documentation Home: docs.rubyrake.org
Rake Project Page: rubyforge.org/projects/rake
Rake API Documents: rake.rubyforge.org
Rake Source Code Repo: github.com/jimweirich/rake
Rake Git Repo Clone URL: git://github.com/jimweirich/rake.git
Rake Bug Reports: github.com/jimweirich/rake/issues
Rake Continuous Build Server: travis-ci.org/#!/jimweirich/rake
Jim Weirich’s 2003 RubyConf presentation: onestepback.org/articles/buildingwithrake/
Martin Fowler’s article on Rake: martinfowler.com/articles/rake.html
Rake is a late entry in the make replacement field. Here are links to other projects with similar (and not so similar) goals.
directory.fsf.org/bras.html -- Bras, one of earliest implementations of "make in a scripting language".
www.a-a-p.org -- Make in Python
www.aromatic.com/tools/jam.txt -- JAM, Java Automated Make
ant.apache.org -- The Ant project
ppt.perl.org/commands/make/index.html -- Make from the Perl Power Tools implementation.
search.cpan.org/search?query=PerlBuildSystem -- The Perl Build System
make.rubyforge.org -- Rant, another Ruby make tool.
For the initial conversation that sparked Rake.
For the initial patch for rule support.
For the recursive rule patch.
For aid in maintaining rake.
Rake is available under an MIT-style license.
See MIT-LICENSE for permissions.
The Rake homepage is rake.rubyforge.org. You can find the Rake RubyForge page at rubyforge.org/projects/rake.
Feel free to submit commits or feature requests. If you send a patch, remember to update the corresponding unit tests. In fact, I prefer new feature to be submitted in the form of new unit tests.
For other information, feel free to ask on the ruby-talk mailing list (which is mirrored to comp.lang.ruby) or contact jim dot weirich at gmail.com.
Jim Weirich <jim.weirich@gmail.com>
Ruby 1.8.6 or later
Copyright 2003-2011 by Jim Weirich. Released under an MIT-style license. See the MIT-LICENSE file included in the distribution.
This software is provided “as is” and without any express or implied warranties, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantibility and fitness for a particular purpose.
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