# Can I specify the rake version?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-specify-the-rake-version/172847>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 28, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-specify-the-rake-version/172847 "2009-07-28T21:11:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-specify-the-rake-version/172847/1 "2009-07-28T21:11:23Z")

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Hi,

Is there a clean way to ensure that a particular rails project uses a  
particular version of rake?

I had a problem when a gem (calendar\_date\_select) upgraded my rake gem.  
The newer version (0.8.4) wasn’t backward compatible with the older one  
(0.7.3). Running ‘rake’ seems to use the latest version of rake,  
regardless of the version of Rails, i.e. I’d specified  
“RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION = ‘1.2.5’” in environment.rb.

Thanks,

Brian H.

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**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\
**Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 10:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-specify-the-rake-version/172847/2 "2009-07-28T22:00:52Z")

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On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Brian  
Hartin[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> “RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION = ‘1.2.5’” in environment.rb.  
> Well you can invoke rake with a specific version number bracketed with  
> underscores

$rake _0.7.3_

This is a standard feature of gem packaged binaries.

–  
Rick DeNatale

Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/)  
Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale)  
WWR: [http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale)  
LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale](http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 6:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/can-i-specify-the-rake-version/172847/3 "2009-07-29T18:29:37Z")

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Rick Denatale wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Brian  
> Hartin[removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> 
> > “RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION = ‘1.2.5’” in environment.rb.  
> > Well you can invoke rake with a specific version number bracketed with  
> > underscores
> 
> $rake _0.7.3_
> 
> This is a standard feature of gem packaged binaries.
> 
> –  
> Rick DeNatale
> 
> Blog: [http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/](http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/)  
> Twitter: [http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale](http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale)  
> WWR: [http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale](http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale)  
> LinkedIn: [http://www.linkedin.com/in/](http://www.linkedin.com/in/)

Thanks. I was hoping for a way to do it in the Rails environment.rb  
file, like ‘RAKE\_VERSION = …’. I think I can set ‘rake path’ there,  
but that seems like a hack. I’d like to just specify the version, and  
let rails figure it out.

When I run ‘gem dependency rails -v 1.2.5’, I get:

Gem rails-1.2.5  
rake (\>= 0.7.2, runtime)  
activesupport (= 1.4.4, runtime)  
activerecord (= 1.15.5, runtime)  
actionpack (= 1.13.5, runtime)  
actionmailer (= 1.3.5, runtime)  
actionwebservice (= 1.2.5, runtime)

It’s interesting that a given rails version depends on specific versions  
of the ‘[active|action]\*’ gems, but it will use the latest version of  
Rake (over 0.7.2).

Thanks again,

Brian