what is the right way to use CLEAN rake task?

Question

This is what I'm trying to do in my Rakefile:

require 'rake/clean'
CLEAN = ['coverage']

This is what I see in the log:

$ rake
/code/foo/Rakefile:29: warning: already initialized constant CLEAN
/Users/foo/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.1.3/gems/rake-10.3.2/lib/rake/clean.rb:61: warning: previous definition of CLEAN was here

I don't like these warnings.. What is the right way?

matt · Answer 1 · 2015-02-04T16:21:31.017

13

CLEAN is a FileList that is used by the predefined clean task. To add your own files to be cleaned, add them to this list. You can use the include method:

require 'rake/clean'
CLEAN.include 'coverage'

Now running rake clean will remove your files, as well as the predefined set of temporary files if any have bean created.

edited Feb 04 '15 at 16:21

answered Dec 04 '14 at 21:30

matt

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Much nicer than the accepted answer IMHO. This lets you use the predefined `clean` task to remove your generated files. – Frank Schmitt Mar 20 '15 at 14:37
2

Another way of adding things to `CLEAN` is `CLEAN << 'coverage'` – Draco Ater Aug 18 '16 at 09:50

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 04 '14 at 20:45

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'rake/clean' already defines the constant CLEAN like so: CLEAN = ::Rake::FileList["**/*~", "**/*.bak", "**/core"]. Constants aren't meant to be overridden (although ruby will let you). If you want to specify the files to be cleaned, you should create your own rake task similar the existing one.

The existing task runs:

Rake::Cleaner.cleanup_files(CLEAN)

So you could run:

Rake::Cleaner.cleanup_files(['coverage'])

to clean up your coverage files.

answered Dec 04 '14 at 20:45

ptd

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if `coverage` is a directory and you want to cleanup everything in it you can also pass `Rake::Cleaner.cleanup_files` a `FileList`: `Rake::Cleaner.cleanup_files(FileList['coverage/**/*'])` – mbigras Dec 31 '16 at 18:17

what is the right way to use CLEAN rake task?

2 Answers2