Cake

Build utility for Crystal.

Since we write our programs in Crystal, it is not too far fetched to write our build tasks in Crystal too. Furthermore, Crystal libraries and frameworks can be used also, which is sometimes beneficial.

This tool does not intend to be compatible with Rake. It is simply a build utility similar to Make.

Installation

cake does not build an executable. Instead, a simple alias should be defined in .bash_profile. Common names for the file include Cakefile, cakefile or cakefile.cr.

alias cake="crystal Cakefile --"

Usage

cake must first be installed as a development dependency using shards install.

development_dependencies:
  cake:
    git: https://github.com/cakefile/cake.git
    branch: master

The targets have to be specified in a file. The following shows a simple Cakefile.

require "cake"

default :two

phony :one
target :one, desc: "Being first isn't everything" do |env|
  run "echo", ["Or is it really?"]
end

phony :two
target :two, deps: [:one], desc: "Being the second is nothing" do |env|
  run "echo", ["Or so it was..."]
end

Cake.run

cake can be used to build the targets. Ensure that it is run in the same directory as the Cakefile.

# Builds target one
$ cake one
echo 'Or is it really?'
Or is it really?

# Builds target two and target one (dependency)
$ cake two
echo 'Or is it really?'
Or is it really?
echo 'Or so it was...'
Or so it was...

# `cake` alone builds the default target
$ cake
echo 'Or is it really?'
Or is it really?
echo 'Or so it was...'
Or so it was...

# Verbose flag can print more information
$ cake -v
Building target one...
echo 'Or is it really?'
Or is it really?
Building target two...
echo 'Or so it was...'
Or so it was...

Development

When developing for cake, it needs to be installed in the lib folder. Thus, symlinks can be used to "install" it in the lib folder..

$ cd lib/
$ ln -s ../src/cake
$ ln -s ../src/cake.cr