Jake -- JavaScript build tool for Node.js

Installing

Prerequisites: Jake requires Node.js. (http://nodejs.org/)

Get Jake:

git clone git://github.com/mde/node-jake.git

Build Jake:

cd node-jake && make && sudo make install

Installing with npm

npm install jake

Or, get the code, and npm link in the code root.

Basic usage

jake [options] target (commands/options ...)

Description

Jake is a simple JavaScript build program with capabilities similar to the regular make or rake command.

Jake has the following features:
    * Jakefiles are in standard JavaScript syntax
    * Tasks with prerequisites
    * Namespaces for tasks
    * Async task execution

Options

-V
--version                   Display the program version.

-h
--help                      Display help information.

-f *FILE*
--jakefile *FILE*           Use FILE as the Jakefile.

-C *DIRECTORY*
--directory *DIRECTORY*     Change to DIRECTORY before running tasks.

-T
--tasks                     Display the tasks, with descriptions, then exit.

Jakefile syntax

Use task or file to define tasks. Call it with three arguments (and one more optional argument):

task(name, dependencies, handler, [async]);

Where name is the string name of the task (or file), dependencies is an array of the dependencies, and handler is a function to run for the task.

The async argument is optional, and when set to true (async === true) indicates the task executes asynchronously. Asynchronous tasks need to call complete() to signal they have completed.

Tasks created with task are always executed when asked for (or depended on). Tasks created with file are only executed if no file with the given name exists or if any of the files it depends on are more recent than the file named by the task. Also, if any dependency is a regular task, the file task will always be executed.

Use desc to add a string description of the task.

Here's an example:

var sys = require('sys');

desc('This is the default task.');
task('default', [], function (params) {
  sys.puts('This is the default task.');
  sys.puts(sys.inspect(arguments));
});

And here's an example of an asynchronous task:

desc('This is an asynchronous task.');
task('asynchronous', [], function () {
  setTimeout(complete, 1000);
}, true);

Use namespace to create a namespace of tasks to perform. Call it with two arguments:

namespace(name, namespaceTasks);

Where is name is the name of the namespace, and namespaceTasks is a function with calls inside it to task or desc definining all the tasks for that namespace.

Here's an example:

var sys = require('sys');

desc('This is the default task.');
task('default', [], function () {
  sys.puts('This is the default task.');
  sys.puts(sys.inspect(arguments));
});

namespace('foo', function () {
  desc('This the foo:bar task');
  task('bar', [], function () {
    sys.puts('doing foo:bar task');
    sys.puts(sys.inspect(arguments));
  });

  desc('This the foo:baz task');
  task('baz', ['default', 'foo:bar'], function () {
    sys.puts('doing foo:baz task');
    sys.puts(sys.inspect(arguments));
  });

});

In this example, the foo:baz task depends on both the default and the foo:bar task.

Passing parameters to jake

Two kinds of parameters can be passed to Jake: positional and named parameters.

Any single parameters passed to the jake command after the task name are passed along to the task handler as positional arguments. For example, with the following Jakefile:

var sys = require('sys');

desc('This is an awesome task.');
task('awesome', [], function () {
  sys.puts(sys.inspect(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)));
});

You could run jake like this:

jake awesome foo bar baz

And you'd get the following output:

[ 'foo', 'bar', 'baz' ]

Any paramters passed to the jake command that contain a colon (:) or equals sign (=) will be added to a keyword/value object that is passed as a final argument to the task handler.

With the above Jakefile, you could run jake like this:

jake awesome foo bar baz qux:zoobie frang:asdf

And you'd get the following output:

[ 'foo'
, 'bar'
, 'baz'
, { qux: 'zoobie', frang: 'asdf' }
]

Running jake with no arguments runs the default task.

Running tasks from within other tasks

Jake supports the ability to run a task from within another task via the invoke and execute methods.

The invoke method will run the desired task, along with its dependencies:

desc('Calls the foo:bar task and its dependencies.');
task('invokeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar and its deps
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
});

It will only run the task once, even if you call invoke repeatedly.

desc('Calls the foo:bar task and its dependencies.');
task('invokeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar and its deps
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
  // Does nothing
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
});

The execute method will run the desired task without its dependencies:

desc('Calls the foo:bar task without its dependencies.');
task('executeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar without its deps
  jake.Task['foo:baz'].execute();
});

Calling execute repeatedly will run the desired task repeatedly.

desc('Calls the foo:bar task without its dependencies.');
task('executeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar without its deps
  jake.Task['foo:baz'].execute();
  // Can keep running this over and over
  jake.Task['foo:baz'].execute();
  jake.Task['foo:baz'].execute();
});

If you want to run the task and its dependencies more than once, you can use invoke with the reenable method.

desc('Calls the foo:bar task and its dependencies.');
task('invokeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar and its deps
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
  // Does nothing
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
  // Only re-runs foo:bar, but not its dependencies
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].reenable();
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
});

The reenable method takes a single Boolean arg, a 'deep' flag, which reenables the task's dependencies if set to true.

desc('Calls the foo:bar task and its dependencies.');
task('invokeFooBar', [], function () {
  // Calls foo:bar and its deps
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
  // Does nothing
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
  // Only re-runs foo:bar, but not its dependencies
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].reenable(true);
  jake.Task['foo:bar'].invoke();
});

Aborting a task

You can abort a task by calling the fail function, and Jake will abort the currently running task. You can pass a customized error message to fail:

desc('This task fails.');
task('failTask', [], function () {
  fail('Yikes. Something back happened.');
});

Uncaught errors will also abort the currently running task.

CoffeeScript Jakefiles

Jake can also handle Jakefiles in CoffeeScript. Be sure to make it Jakefile.coffee so Jake knows it's in CoffeeScript.

Here's an example:

sys = require('sys')

desc 'This is the default task.'
task 'default', [], (params) ->
  console.log 'Ths is the default task.'
  console.log(sys.inspect(arguments))
  invoke 'new', []

task 'new', [], ->
  console.log 'ello from new'
  invoke 'foo:next', ['param']

namespace 'foo', ->
  task 'next', [], (param) ->
    console.log 'ello from next with param: ' + param

Related projects

James Coglan's "Jake": http://github.com/jcoglan/jake

Confusingly, this is a Ruby tool for building JavaScript packages from source code.

280 North's Jake: http://github.com/280north/jake

This is also a JavaScript port of Rake, which runs on the Narwhal platform.

Author

Matthew Eernisse, mde@fleegix.org

Contributors

Mark Wubben / EqualMedia mark.wubben@equalmedia.com Patrick Walton pcwalton@mimiga.net Andrzej Sliwa andrzej.sliwa@i-tool.eu Nikolay V. Nemshilov aka St nemshilov@gmail.com Sascha Teske sascha.teske@gmail.com