Question

I thought by doing

file 'myfile' => [ :some_task ]

the task would not be run since the file already exists, but when the file does exist the task runs. So is there a way to have the task not run when the file exists?

Answer 1

It depends. what :some_task is.

:some_task is a Symbol, no String. It seems, myfile depends not on another file, but on a task.

If you have this situation:

require 'rake'

file 'myfile' => [ :some_task ] do |tsk|
  puts "Start #{tsk}" #some action  
end
task :some_task do |tsk|
  puts "Start #{tsk}" #some action
end

the question if :some_task is newer, makes no sense. It is a task to be executed always.

And if myfile has a prerequsite, that must be executed, then myfile will be created.