Default task for namespace in Rake

Question

Given something like:

namespace :my_tasks do   task :foo do     do_something   end    task :bar do     do_something_else   end    task :all => [:foo, :bar] end 

How do I make :all be the default task, so that running rake my_tasks will call it (instead of having to call rake my_tasks:all)?

Answer 1

Place it outside the namespace like this:

namespace :my_tasks do   task :foo do     do_something   end    task :bar do     do_something_else   end  end  task :all => ["my_tasks:foo", "my_tasks:bar"] 

Also... if your tasks require arguments then:

namespace :my_tasks do   task :foo, :arg1, :arg2 do |t, args|     do_something   end    task :bar, :arg1, :arg2  do |t, args|     do_something_else   end  end  task :my_tasks, :arg1, :arg2 do |t, args|   Rake::Task["my_tasks:foo"].invoke( args.arg1, args.arg2 )   Rake::Task["my_tasks:bar"].invoke( args.arg1, args.arg2 ) end 

Notice how in the 2nd example you can call the task the same name as the namespace, ie 'my_tasks'

Answer 2

Not very intuitive, but you can have a namespace and a task that have the same name, and that effectively gives you what you want. For instance

namespace :my_task do   task :foo do     do_foo   end   task :bar do     do_bar   end end  task :my_task do   Rake::Task['my_task:foo'].invoke   Rake::Task['my_task:bar'].invoke end 

Now you can run commands like,

rake my_task:foo 

and

rake my_task