Rake Task Management Essentials

Table of Contents

Rake Task Management Essentials

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgements

About the Reviewers

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Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. The Software Task Management Tool – Rake

Installing Rake

Introducing rake tasks

The command-line arguments

Using global Rakefiles to run tasks anywhere

Defining custom rake tasks

Task dependencies – prerequisites

Multiple tasks definitions

Passing arguments to the tasks

The first alternative

The second variant

The structure of a Rake project

Using the import method to load other Rakefiles

Running rake tasks from other tasks

The code conventions of Rake

Summary

2. Working with Files

Using file tasks to work with files

The characteristics of the file task dependencies

Creating a folder with the directory method

Using Rake's file utilities

Using the FileList module functionality to collect the files

Using pathmap to transform file lists

Introducing the FileUtils module

A practical example of automatically generating a config file

Summary

3. Working with Rules

Understanding the duplication of the file tasks

Using a rule to get rid of the duplicated file tasks

Detecting a source for the rule dynamically

Using a regular expression to match more tasks

Summary

4. Cleaning Up a Build

Setting up a project

The cleaning tasks

Summary

5. Running Tasks in Parallel

Defining tasks with parallel prerequisites

Thread safety of multitasks

Multiple task definitions with a common prerequisite

Applying multitasks in practice

Summary

6. Debugging Rake Tasks

Using command-line arguments for debugging

Getting a dependency's resolution with --prereqs

Using the --rules option to trace the rule resolution

Using the Ruby approach to debug a Rake project

Summary

7. Integration with Rails

Introducing Rake's integration with Rails

Custom rake tasks in a Rails project

Recurrent running of tasks

Summary

8. Testing Rake Tasks

The need for tests

Writing tests for rake tasks

Summary

9. Continuous Integration

Introducing Jenkins

Setting up Jenkins

Configuring Jenkins to run rake tasks

Summary

10. Relentless Automation

Examples of Rake being used by famous gems

The pain of task execution

Sinatra using Rake to run tests

Sinatra using Rake to generate documentation

Capistrano extending the Rake implementation

Other examples of Sinatra using Rake

Thor – the next generation of Rake

Summary

Index

Rake Task Management Essentials

Rake Task Management Essentials

Copyright © 2014 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: April 2014

Production Reference: 1140414

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

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Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78328-077-3

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Cover Image by Kim Nousaine (<[email protected]>)

Credits

Author

Andrey Koleshko

Reviewers

Mario Miguel Agüero Obando

Stuart Ellis

Avinasha Sastry

Commissioning Editor

Grant Mizen

Acquisition Editor

Neha Nagwekar

Content Development Editor

Priya Singh

Technical Editor

Dennis John

Copy Editor

Stuti Srivastava

Project Coordinator

Harshal Ved

Proofreaders

Simran Bhogal

Ameesha Green

Indexer

Mehreen Deshmukh

Graphics

Sheetal Aute

Production Coordinator

Arvindkumar Gupta

Cover Work

Arvindkumar Gupta

About the Author

Andrey Koleshko had his first touch with programming while at school, when he worked on Pascal. He had been solving basic algorithmic tasks. The first programming language he used at the beginning of his career was Java. He worked with this language for a year and then migrated to the Ruby language, which he worked with for the next four years. Of these four years, he worked with Altoros for three. He had an amazing time there, learning the language and technologies deeply.

Currently, he works at a local cloud hosting company. The company change provided him with the opportunity to deal with a lot of challenges concerning application architecture, code testing, debugging, and deployment processes. As a result, he has been able to contribute to some famous Ruby libraries. More detailed information about his contributions can be found on GitHub at http://github.com/ka8725.

He mostly works with the Rails framework. He openly shares all of his thoughts and his most interesting experiences through his blog at http://railsguides.net. He has recently started to learn the Python programming language.

He lives in Minsk, Belarus, and likes to watch and play sports such as soccer, ping-pong, and volleyball. He also likes travelling to tropical countries with his wife. Teaching people gives him immense pleasure.

Acknowledgements

I'm thankful to many people who've helped me write this book. But firstly, I would like to thank the publishers who offered me an opportunity to write this book. If it wasn't for them, who knows what would have happened with this book. Thankfully, the Packt Publishing team was very supportive and helped me deliver this useful book with high quality. A big thanks goes to Sergey Avseyev, who always supported me in the technical and difficult parts of the book. He also made me believe that I could write this book from scratch. I would also like to thank Lee Hambley, who shared his experience with me, and as a result, the last chapter of the book is more hands-on. I have no doubt now that Rake has a very successful future despite other competitive tools.

I'm grateful to my wife for allowing me to allocate enough time to write the chapters. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the creator of Rake, Jim Weirich. He created a really great and powerful tool. Unfortunately, he won't be with us to see this book published. He passed away recently. But anyway, I believe that he would be happy that his creation helped develop this book.

About the Reviewers

Mario Miguel Agüero Obando is a software engineer with experience in both frontend and backend sides of software development. He has worked in intensive data processing applications and also in new UX designs.

He is also an experienced programming trainer and has reviewed several technical books.

Stuart Ellis works for a Ruby on Rails and mobile software development company, where he wears many hats. He has also worked as a .NET and Ruby programmer, tamed various brands of databases, managed different combinations of Windows and Linux, and studied history. He has always been a Yorkshireman.

Avinasha Sastry has been involved in technology and startups right from his college days. He has never worked in big companies because he loves the business challenges in startups as much as he loves technology. He has been working with SupportBee for the last three years. He is an avid reader, a Harry Potter fan, and a globetrotter.

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