Overriding rails' default rake tasks
rake, ruby-on-rails
Solution
If you define a rake task that already exists, its execution gets appended to the original task's execution; both tasks will be executed.
If you want to redefine a task you need to clear the original task first:
Rake::Task["db:test:prepare"].clear
It's also useful to note that once a task has been executed in rake, it won't execute again even if you call it again. This is by design but you can call `.reset` on a task to allow it to be run again.
Problem
I have a Rails 2.2 project in which I want to override the functionality of the `rake db:test:prepare` task. I thought this would work, but it doesn't: ``` #lib/tasks/db.rake namespace :db do namespace :test do desc "Overridden version of rails' standard db:test:prepare task since the schema dump used in that can't handle DB enums" task :prepare => [:environment] do puts "doing db:structure:dump" Rake::Task['db:structure:dump'].invoke puts "doing db:test:clone_structure" Rake::Task['db:test:clone_structure'].invoke end end end ``` I get the standard task's behaviour. If I change the name of the task to `:prepare2` and then do `rake db:test:prepare2`, then it works fine. The natural conclusion I draw from this is that my rake tasks are being defined before the built-in Rails ones, so mine is overridden by the standard `:prepare` task. Can anyone see how I can fix this? I'd rather override it than have to use a new task. Thanks, max