How to run Rake tasks from within Rake tasks?

Question

If you need the task to behave as a method, how about using an actual method?

task :build => [:some_other_tasks] do
  build
end

task :build_all do
  [:debug, :release].each { |t| build t }
end

def build(type = :debug)
  # ...
end

If you'd rather stick to rake's idioms, here are your possibilities, compiled from past answers:

• This always executes the task, but it doesn't execute its dependencies:

  Rake::Task["build"].execute
  

• This one executes the dependencies, but it only executes the task if it has not already been invoked:

  Rake::Task["build"].invoke
  

• This first resets the task's already_invoked state, allowing the task to then be executed again, dependencies and all:

  Rake::Task["build"].reenable
  Rake::Task["build"].invoke
  

• Note that dependencies already invoked are not automatically re-executed unless they are re-enabled. In Rake >= 10.3.2, you can use the following to re-enable those as well:

  Rake::Task["build"].all_prerequisite_tasks.each(&:reenable)
  

for example:

Rake::Task["db:migrate"].invoke

task :build_all do
  [ :debug, :release ].each do |t|
    $build_type = t
    Rake::Task["build"].reenable
    Rake::Task["build"].invoke
  end
end

That should sort you out, just needed the same thing myself.

task :invoke_another_task do
  # some code
  Rake::Task["another:task"].invoke
end

task :build_all do
  [ :debug, :release ].each do |t|
    $build_type = t
    Rake::Task["build"].execute
  end
end

If you want each task to run regardless of any failures, you can do something like:

task :build_all do
  [:debug, :release].each do |t| 
    ts = 0
    begin  
      Rake::Task["build"].invoke(t)
    rescue
      ts = 1
      next
    ensure
      Rake::Task["build"].reenable # If you need to reenable
    end
    return ts # Return exit code 1 if any failed, 0 if all success
  end
end