Ruby on Rails/Built-In Rails Tools/What is Rake anyway?

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Rake is a Ruby build tool like make and Ant.

  • 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.