Rake is a build tool, written in Ruby, using Ruby as a build language. Rake is similar to make in scope and purpose. Rake a simple ruby build program with capabilities similar to make.
Rake has the following features:
- Rakefiles (rake’s version of Makefiles) are completely defined in standard Ruby syntax. No XML files to edit. No quirky Makefile syntax to worry about (is that a tab or a space?)
- Users can specify tasks with prerequisites.
- Rake supports rule patterns to sythesize implicit tasks.
- Rake is lightweight. It can be distributed with other projects as a single file. Projects that depend upon rake do not require that rake be installed on target systems.