[ANN] Rant 0.4.6

[Stefan Lang]

Rant is a flexible build tool written entirely in Ruby,
similar to Rake.

=3D=3D What's new in this release?

Mainly improved support for buildfiles in subdirectories,
some fixes for Ruby 1.8.3 and 1.9 (latest from CVS).

There are also two new options:
* The --cd-parent (-c) option to search for an Rantfile in parent
=C2=A0 directories. (Similar to default behaviour of Rake.)
=C2=A0 Yurii A. Rashkovskii provided a patch. Thank you!
* The --look-up (-u) option to search for the root Rantfile in parent
=C2=A0 directories.

=46or more details read http://make.rubyforge.org/files/NEWS.html

I'd appreciate suggestions about new features, names, etc.
If you are interested in Rant, join the mailing list:
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/make-cafe

=3D=3D Installing Rant

You can install Rant as a RubyGem:
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 % gem install --remote rant

or download the package from=20
RubyForge(http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=3D615)
and install with install.rb:
=C2=A0 =C2=A0 % ruby install.rb

=3D=3D More about Rant

The equivalent to a Makefile for make is the Rantfile. An
Rantfile is actually a valid Ruby script that is read by the
rant command.

Rant currently features:
* Defining custom tasks
* Automated packaging, testing and RDoc generation for Ruby
=C2=A0 applications and libraries.
* Primitive support for compiling C# sources portably with csc, cscc
=C2=A0 and mcs.
* Dependency checking for C/C++ source files.
* Creating gzipped tar and zip archives =E2=80=94 without installing
=C2=A0 additional software.
* Optional recognition of file changes based on MD5 checksums instead
=C2=A0 of file modification times.
* Multiple buildfiles (e.g. one per directory).
* The rant-import command creates a monolithic rant script,
=C2=A0 so you don't depend on an rant installation anymore.

=2E.. and more, visit http://make.ruby-co.de

Rubyforge page:: http://rubyforge.org/projects/make/

PS: Currently I can't recommend upgrading to Ruby 1.8.3.
I had a "[BUG] unknown node type 0", a segfault and
an incompatible change (unintended) in FileUtils::Verbose
(already fixed in CVS). Also it seems that gems created
with Ruby 1.8.3 don't work (installation) with Ruby 1.8.2.

=2D-=20
Stefan

 

[Kevin Ballard]

Is there any description somewhere that explains why I should use Rant
instead of Rake? Or at least has an objective comparison of the two?

 

[Gyoung-Yoon Noh]

Hi,

There have been already tons of answers to your question from Stefan.
Please, don't bug him. Rant is a good utility, even though rake had been
already there before. Try to find in the groups.google.com.