From: Stefan Lang <langstefan@...>
Date: 2005-09-26T04:27:39+09:00
Subject: [ANN] Rant 0.4.6

Rant is a flexible build tool written entirely in Ruby,
similar to Rake.

== What's new in this release?

Mainly improved support for buildfiles in subdirectories,
some fixes for Ruby 1.8.3 and 1.9 (latest from CVS).

There are also two new options:
* The --cd-parent (-c) option to search for an Rantfile in parent
  directories. (Similar to default behaviour of Rake.)
  Yurii A. Rashkovskii provided a patch. Thank you!
* The --look-up (-u) option to search for the root Rantfile in parent
  directories.

For more details read http://make.rubyforge.org/files/NEWS.html

I'd appreciate suggestions about new features, names, etc.
If you are interested in Rant, join the mailing list:
http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/make-cafe

== Installing Rant

You can install Rant as a RubyGem:
    % gem install --remote rant

or download the package from 
RubyForge(http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=615)
and install with install.rb:
    % ruby install.rb

== More about Rant

The equivalent to a Makefile for make is the Rantfile. An
Rantfile is actually a valid Ruby script that is read by the
rant command.

Rant currently features:
* Defining custom tasks
* Automated packaging, testing and RDoc generation for Ruby
  applications and libraries.
* Primitive support for compiling C# sources portably with csc, cscc
  and mcs.
* Dependency checking for C/C++ source files.
* Creating gzipped tar and zip archives — without installing
  additional software.
* Optional recognition of file changes based on MD5 checksums instead
  of file modification times.
* Multiple buildfiles (e.g. one per directory).
* The rant-import command creates a monolithic rant script,
  so you don't depend on an rant installation anymore.

... and more, visit http://make.ruby-co.de

Rubyforge page:: http://rubyforge.org/projects/make/

PS: Currently I can't recommend upgrading to Ruby 1.8.3.
I had a "[BUG] unknown node type 0", a segfault and
an incompatible change (unintended) in FileUtils::Verbose
(already fixed in CVS). Also it seems that gems created
with Ruby 1.8.3 don't work (installation) with Ruby 1.8.2.

-- 
Stefan