Rake task help with DRYness

Ruby
1

I’m somewhat new to writing my own rake tasks. I have a pair of tasks
that convert some stuff from one format to another.

rake my_ns:to_a
rake my_ns:to_b

And everything works just fine. The problem is that the implementation
the code is basically duplicated. The process is the same, the only
real difference is that old_format and new_format local variables are
swapped in the second conversion task. I want to make this much DRYer
by refactoring the common code out.

Now, if this was a ruby class, I would simply create a private method
called convert_to(format), or something similar. Then the format
conversion happens in this method, based on the argument.

How does one accomplish this with rake tasks? Basically I want to pass
arguments to a rake task, or method of some sort, and use the result. A
simple task in general programming, but I am not sure how to make this
work in the context of rake.

Thanks for the help.

2

Alex W. wrote:

by refactoring the common code out.
Thanks for the help.
Not sure I understand, but why not just do what you said: define a
method that handles the common work?

task :to_a do |name|
convert(name)
end

task :to_b do |name|
convert(name)
end

def convert name
puts “converting #{name}”
end

3

Joel VanderWerf wrote:

Alex W. wrote:

by refactoring the common code out.
Thanks for the help.
Not sure I understand, but why not just do what you said: define a
method that handles the common work?

task :to_a do |name|
convert(name)
end

task :to_b do |name|
convert(name)
end

def convert name
puts “converting #{name}”
end

Slaps forehead. For some reason, I assumed that is not how a rake
task works. I guess I need to remember its just plain old ruby with
some syntax sugar, right?