Lookup prerequisites with same name outside of scope instead of matching self

[svanderbleek]

Task#lookup_prerequisite finds self if looking up a prerequisite outside of the namespace with the same task name. Behavior in this case is debatable but at least there should be a way to specify to lookup the task outside of the scope instead of ending the chain with a circular reference. If this default behavior I have implemented looks good this solves the problem by convention. Otherwise notation will need to be introduced such as

task :b
namespace "a" do
  task :b => "global:b"
end

Where global signifies to lookup outside the namespace.

[drbrain]

I'm concerned about this @scope-less lookup. Does it follow ruby's constant lookup rules, or does it always only look at top-level.

What prerequisite task is discovered with:

m = task 'm'
a_m = nil

namespace 'a' do
  a_m = task 'm'

  namespace 'b' do
    task x: 'm'
  end
end

Whichever behavior (m or a_m) this change causes should be tested and documented.

[svanderbleek]

Good point ✨ I'll look into it and follow up. Thanks.

[drbrain]

After thinking further, I think m should be the dependency for a:b:x, not a:m.

I think this is best because it prevents unintentional change in dependencies as you add new tasks in the namespaces between the root and current namespace.

[drbrain]

Any updates on this @svanderbleek, or should I finish it?

[svanderbleek]

I'll finish it, thanks for the ping. To finish we just need the two namespace test, correct?

[drbrain]

Correct

[svanderbleek]

@drbrain rebased and updated with test_prerequisite_tasks_in_nested_namespaces

[svanderbleek]

Any thoughts @drbrain?

[drbrain]

Since this changes the behavior of rake I have to wait until rake 11 to merge it. Barring any bugs or other commitments this will probably be within a month or so

[bhenderson]

according to the Rakefile Format https://github.com/jimweirich/rake/blob/master/doc/rakefile.rdoc, the way to do this is '^b' or 'rake:b'. this does seem to work for prerequisites, but not for task names.

task :test do
  puts 'hi test'
end

namespace :test do
  task :unit do
    puts 'hi units'
  end

  task :unit => '^test' # works
  task '^test' => :unit # does not work
end

$ rake --version
rake, version 10.3.1
$ rake test
hi test
$ rake test:unit
hi test
hi units
$ rake test:^test
hi test
hi units

Am I missing something?

[svanderbleek]

@bhenderson Your example is off, but you are correct. Here is the problem I was talking about:

task :test do
  puts 'hi test'
end

namespace :unit do
  task :test do
    puts 'hi units'
  end

  task :test => '^test' # works
  task :test => 'test' # doesn't work
end

I didn't know about the syntax.