Pass Hash as Parameter to Rake Task

Question

I've got a rake task

task :post_hit, [:host, :title, :description, :model, :num_assignments, :reward, :lifetime, :qualifications, :p, :opts] => :environment do |t, args|

:p needs to be a hash, but if I try:

rake turkee:post_hit["http://www.staging.collegesportsbluebook.com","LS Info","Fill In Player First Name","MechanicalTurk",100,0.01,2,{},{id: 5},{}]

It errors out saying that id: could not be parsed (the space seemed to do something).

If I tried:

rake turkee:post_hit["http://www.staging.collegesportsbluebook.com","LS Info","Fill In Player First Name","MechanicalTurk",100,0.01,2,{},{"id: 5"},{}]

the who string "id: 5" was being interpreted as a single string.

Are we not allowed to pass hashes to rake tasks?

Answer 1

I use querystring-like parameters and parse them with Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query

Here's how I do it

require 'rack/utils' # needed for Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query

namespace :foo do
  task :bar, [ :args_expr ] => :environment do |t, args|
     args.with_defaults(:args_expr => "name=abdo&fruits[]=bananas&fruits[]=dates")
     options = Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query(args[:args_expr])

     puts options
  end
end

And I call it like this: (notice how arrays and hashes are passed)

bundle exec rake "foo:bar[name=abdo&fruits[]=apples&fruits[]=oranges&hash[foo]=bar&hash[cool]=notmuch]"

Output:

{"name"=>"abdo", "fruits"=>["apples", "oranges"], "hash"=>{"foo"=>"bar", "cool"=>"notmuch"}}