rake-10.1.0 - rake-10.4.2 Documentation

# Rake 10.1.0 Released¶ ↑

## Changes in Version 10.1¶ ↑

### New Features¶ ↑

- Add support for variable length task argument lists. If more actual arguments are supplied than named arguments, then the extra arguments values will be in args.extras.

- Application name is not displayed in the help banner. (Previously “rake” was hardcoded, now rake-based applications can display their own names).

### Bug Fixes¶ ↑

Bug fixes include:

- Fix backtrace suppression issues.

- Rules now explicit get task arguments passed to them.

- Rename FileList#exclude? to FileList#exclude_from_list? to avoid conflict with new Rails method.

- Clean / Clobber tasks now report failure to remove files.

- Plus heaps of internal code cleanup.

## What is Rake¶ ↑

Rake is a build tool similar to the make program in many ways. But instead of cryptic make recipes, Rake uses standard Ruby code to declare tasks and dependencies. You have the full power of a modern scripting language built right into your build tool.

## Availability¶ ↑

The easiest way to get and install rake is via RubyGems …

    gem install rake    (you may need root/admin privileges)

Otherwise, you can get it from the more from GitHub:

GitHub

  git://github.com/jimweirich/rake.git

## Thanks¶ ↑

As usual, it was input from users that drove a lot of these changes. The following people contributed patches, made suggestions or made otherwise helpful comments. Thanks to …

- Michael Nikitochkin (general code cleanup)

- Vipul A M (general code cleanup)

- Dennis Bell (variable length task argument lists)

- Jacob Swanner (rules arguments)

- Rafael Rosa Fu (documentation typo)

- Stuart Nelson (install.rb fixes)

- Lee Hambley (application name in help banner)

– Jim Weirich