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

• github.com/jimweirich/rake/issues

• Rake Documentation Home: docs.rubyrake.org

• Rake Project Page: github.com/jimweirich/rake

• Rake API Documents: onestepback.org/software/rake/

• 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

• search.cpan.org/search?query=PerlBuildSystem – The Perl Build System

• rubydoc.info/gems/rant/0.5.7/frames – Rant, another Ruby make tool.

Ryan Dlugosz

For the initial conversation that sparked Rake.

[email protected]

For the initial patch for rule support.

Tilman Sauerbeck <[email protected]>

For the recursive rule patch.

Eric Hodel

For aid in maintaining rake.

Rake is available under an MIT-style license.

:include: MIT-LICENSE

The Rake homepage is onestepback.org/software/rake/. You can find the Rake GitHub page at github.com/jimweirich/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.

Author

Jim Weirich <[email protected]>

Requires

Ruby 1.9 or later

License

Copyright 2003-2013 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.