xmake: A JavaScript make-like Utility

Update This article likely requires a bit of updating to work the the newest version of xmake and xjs. The general ideas are still as described below.

xmake is a make-like utility modeled after Ruby's Rake.

xmake is an xjs package. If you've been following along the xjs saga you can cd xjs; svn up; make install;. If you haven't installed xjs yet, the start of this article will help.

After it is installed you can run xmake from the command line

xmake [-f filename] taskname

If you haven't specified the filename option then xmake looks for a file named Xmakefile.js which contains any JavaScript you want. This file will likely contain some task definitions

An example Xmakefile.js file:

// defines println
require('helpers');

xmake.task('low', function() {
  println('low');
});

xmake.task('mid1', ['low'], function() {
  println('mid1');
});

xmake.task('mid2', ['low'], function() {
  println('mid2');
});

xmake.task('high', ['mid1', 'mid2'], function() {
  println('high');
});

Note the second parameter to xmake.task is an optional list of dependencies.

You can then run a task from the command line. If you are currently in the same directory as the Xmakefile.js file then you can just run.

$ xmake high
low
mid1
mid2
high

$ xmake mid2
low
mid2

If you are in a different directory than the Xmakefile.js file or the file defining the tasks is named something different than Xmakefile.js then you can pass an option to the xmake utility

$ xmake -f path/to/taskfile.js taskname

The name xmake isn't exactly a thriller so if you can think of a better name please comment and it can be changed before we're stuck with xmake.