Scope of rakes in a rails project?

Question

I have a number of parsers I run with rakes in a project I'm working on. When using a method name that already exists in another rake, and because they both use the same environment, I get a conflict.

Is there a way to limit the scope of rake files within their namespace? I thought that was the whole point of the namespace?

Example:

namespace :test do
  task :test_task => :environment do
      ...
  end

  def test_method(argument)
    ...
  end    
end

namespace :other_test do
  task :test_task => :environment do
    ...
  end

  def test_method(argument, argument2)
    ...
  end
end

In this case, when running rake test:test_task I'll receive an invalid amount of arguments error. On the other hand, if I define the method within the task itself, I have to keep the method at the top of the rake file in order. This gets kind of confusing and ugly.

Is that just a necessary evil?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I see the namespaces for rake tasks as serving the same purpose as directories in a file system: they're about organization rather than encapsulation. That's why database tasks are in db:, Rails tasks in rails:, etc.

Rake namespaces are not classes so you need to ask yourself what class you're adding test_method to when you define it within a Rake namespace. The answer is Object. So, when you hit your second task, Object already has a test_method method that takes one parameter and Ruby rightly complains.

The best solution is to make your Rake tasks very thin (just like controllers) and put any supporting methods (such as test_method) off in some library file somewhere sensible. A Rake task should usually just do a bit of set up and then call a library method to do the real work (i.e. the same general layout as a controller).

Executive summary: put all the real work and heavy lifting somewhere in your library files and make your Rake tasks thin wrappers for your libraries. This should make your problem go away through proper code organization.