Rake task w/ splat arguments

Question

I'm attempting to create a rake task that takes a required first argument, and then any number of additional arguments which I want to lump together into an array:

rake course["COURSE NAME", 123, 456, 789]

I've tried the following but args[:numbers] is simply a string w/ 123 instead of all of the numbers.

task :course, [:name, *:numbers] => :environment do |t, args|
  puts args # {:name=>"COURSE NAME", :numbers=>"123"}
end

Hinds

How about rake course["COURSE NAME", [123, 456, 789]]? – Cutcherry

That gives me {:name=>"COURSE NAME", :numbers=>"[123"} which is really bizarre. – Hinds

No spaces are allowed between the arguments for the tasks, try this: rake course["COURSE NAME",123,456,789] – Light

Nope. Gives me {:name=>"COURSE NAME", :numbers=>"123"} – Hinds

Answer 1

Starting with rake 10.1.0 you can use Rake::TaskArguments#extras:

task :environment

task :course, [:name] => :environment do |t, args|
  name = args[:name]
  numbers = args.extras
  puts "name = #{name}"
  puts "numbers = #{numbers.join ','}"
end

Output:

$ rake "course[COURSE NAME, 123, 456, 789]"
name = COURSE NAME
numbers = 123,456,789

For rake < 10.1.0 you could create a sufficienty large argument list.

Here's a workaround for up to 26 numbers:

task :course, [:name, *:a..:z] => :environment do |t, args|
  name = args[:name]
  numbers = args.values_at(*:a..:z).compact
  puts "name = #{name}"
  puts "numbers = #{numbers.join ','}"
end

Butt

This does not work. I've tried rake course["COURSE NAME",123,456,789] as well as rake course["COURSE NAME",[123,456,789]] and in both cases args.extras is nil – Hinds

Seems like this feature was introduced in rake 10.1.0, maybe you have to update – Butt

This works when using 10.1.0 our server is currently running 10.0.3. Is there a solution that doesn't use the extras method? – Hinds

@KyleDecot added a hack for rake < 10.1.0 to my answer – Butt