In Rake task definition, like following:
desc 'SOME description'
task :some_task => :environment do
# DO SOMETHING
end
What does the :some_task in task :some_task => :environment means?
Is it the method name which will be invoked in the DO SOMETHING part?
Can :some_task be any arbitrary string which describe the task?
In fact, when you're creating a rake task, :some_task is the name of the task you are calling.
For instance, in this case, you will call rake some_task
You also could define namespaces for your tasks :
namespace :my_tasks do
desc "My first task"
task :first_task => :environment do
# DO SOMETHING
end
end
And then you will call rake my_tasks:first_task in your console.
Hope it will help you,
Edit:
As explained by Holger Just, the :environment executes the "environment" task and if you are on rails, loads the environment. This could take a long time but il also helps you if your tasks works with the database.
With your example, you define a task called some_task which can be invoked by calling rake some_task on the command line.
It will depend on the environment task which will be rune before your new some_task. In rails, the environment task sets up the rails environment (loading libraries, preparing database connection, ...) which is quite expensive and thus optional.
