Another commonly used option is to pass environment variables. In your code you read them via ENV['VAR'], and can pass them right before the rake command, like

$ VAR=foo rake mytask

I just wanted to be able to run:

$ rake some:task arg1 arg2

Simple, right? (Nope!)

Rake interprets arg1 and arg2 as tasks, and tries to run them. So we just abort before it does.

namespace :some do
  task task: :environment do
    arg1, arg2 = ARGV

    # your task...

    exit
  end
end

Take that, brackets!

Disclaimer: I wanted to be able to do this in a pretty small pet project. Not intended for "real world" usage since you lose the ability to chain rake tasks (i.e. rake task1 task2 task3). IMO not worth it. Just use the ugly rake task[arg1,arg2].

I like the "querystring" syntax for argument passing, especially when there are a lot of arguments to be passed.

Example:

rake "mytask[width=10&height=20]"

The "querystring" being:

width=10&height=20

Warning: note that the syntax is rake "mytask[foo=bar]" and NOT rake mytask["foo=bar"]

When parsed inside the rake task using Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query , we get a Hash:

=> {"width"=>"10", "height"=>"20"}

(The cool thing is that you can pass hashes and arrays, more below)

This is how to achieve this:

require 'rack/utils'

task :mytask, :args_expr do |t,args|
  args.with_defaults(:args_expr => "width=10&height=10")
  options = Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query(args[:args_expr])
end

Here's a more extended example that I'm using with Rails in my delayed_job_active_record_threaded gem:

bundle exec rake "dj:start[ebooks[workers_number]=16&ebooks[worker_timeout]=60&albums[workers_number]=32&albums[worker_timeout]=120]"

Parsed the same way as above, with an environment dependency (in order load the Rails environment)

namespace :dj do
  task :start, [ :args_expr ] => :environment do |t, args|
    # defaults here...
    options = Rack::Utils.parse_nested_query(args[:args_expr])  
  end
end

Gives the following in options

=> {"ebooks"=>{"workers_number"=>"16", "worker_timeout"=>"60"}, "albums"=>{"workers_number"=>"32", "worker_timeout"=>"120"}}

I've found the answer from these two websites: Net Maniac and Aimred.

You need to have version > 0.8 of rake to use this technique

The normal rake task description is this:

desc 'Task Description'
task :task_name => [:depends_on_taskA, :depends_on_taskB] do
  #interesting things
end

To pass arguments, do three things:

1. Add the argument names after the task name, separated by commas.
2. Put the dependencies at the end using :needs => [...]
3. Place |t, args| after the do. (t is the object for this task)

To access the arguments in the script, use args.arg_name

desc 'Takes arguments task'
task :task_name, :display_value, :display_times, :needs => [:depends_on_taskA, :depends_on_taskB] do |t, args|
  args.display_times.to_i.times do
    puts args.display_value
  end
end

To call this task from the command line, pass it the arguments in []s

rake task_name['Hello',4]

will output

Hello
Hello
Hello
Hello

and if you want to call this task from another task, and pass it arguments, use invoke

task :caller do
  puts 'In Caller'
  Rake::Task[:task_name].invoke('hi',2)
end

then the command

rake caller

will output

In Caller
hi
hi

I haven't found a way to pass arguments as part of a dependency, as the following code breaks:

task :caller => :task_name['hi',2]' do
   puts 'In Caller'
end

If you can't be bothered to remember what argument position is for what and you want do something like a ruby argument hash. You can use one argument to pass in a string and then regex that string into an options hash.

namespace :dummy_data do
  desc "Tests options hash like arguments"
  task :test, [:options] => :environment do |t, args|
    arg_options = args[:options] || '' # nil catch incase no options are provided
    two_d_array = arg_options.scan(/\W*(\w*): (\w*)\W*/)
    puts two_d_array.to_s + ' # options are regexed into a 2d array'
    string_key_hash = two_d_array.to_h
    puts string_key_hash.to_s + ' # options are in a hash with keys as strings'
    options = two_d_array.map {|p| [p[0].to_sym, p[1]]}.to_h
    puts options.to_s + ' # options are in a hash with symbols'
    default_options = {users: '50', friends: '25', colour: 'red', name: 'tom'}
    options = default_options.merge(options)
    puts options.to_s + ' # default option values are merged into options'
  end
end

And on the command line you get.

$ rake dummy_data:test["users: 100 friends: 50 colour: red"]
[["users", "100"], ["friends", "50"], ["colour", "red"]] # options are regexed into a 2d array
{"users"=>"100", "friends"=>"50", "colour"=>"red"} # options are in a hash with keys as strings
{:users=>"100", :friends=>"50", :colour=>"red"} # options are in a hash with symbols
{:users=>"100", :friends=>"50", :colour=>"red", :name=>"tom"} # default option values are merged into options

In addition to answer by kch (I didn't find how to leave a comment to that, sorry):

You don't have to specify variables as ENV variables before the rake command. You can just set them as usual command line parameters like that:

rake mytask var=foo

and access those from your rake file as ENV variables like such:

p ENV['var'] # => "foo"

Most of the methods described above did not work for me, maybe they are deprecated in the newer versions. The up-to-date guide can be found here: http://guides.rubyonrails.org/command_line.html#custom-rake-tasks

a copy-and-paste ans from the guide is here:

task :task_name, [:arg_1] => [:pre_1, :pre_2] do |t, args|
  # You can use args from here
end

Invoke it like this

bin/rake "task_name[value 1]" # entire argument string should be quoted

To pass arguments to the default task, you can do something like this. For example, say "version" is your argument:

task :default, [:version] => [:build]

task :build, :version do |t,args|
  version = args[:version]
  puts version ? "version is #{version}" : "no version passed"
end

Then you can call it like so:

$ rake
no version passed

or

$ rake default[3.2.1]
version is 3.2.1

or

$ rake build[3.2.1]
version is 3.2.1

However, I have not found a way to avoid specifying the task name (default or build) while passing in arguments. Would love to hear if anyone knows of a way.

While passing parameters, it is better option is an input file, can this be a excel a json or whatever you need and from there read the data structure and variables you need from that including the variable name as is the need. To read a file can have the following structure.

  namespace :name_sapace_task do
    desc "Description task...."
      task :name_task  => :environment do
        data =  ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(File.read(Rails.root+"public/file.json")) if defined?(data)
    # and work whit yoour data, example is data["user_id"]

    end
  end

Example json

{
  "name_task": "I'm a task",
  "user_id": 389,
  "users_assigned": [389,672,524],
  "task_id": 3
}

Execution

rake :name_task 

options and dependencies need to be inside arrays:

namespace :thing do
  desc "it does a thing"
  task :work, [:option, :foo, :bar] do |task, args|
    puts "work", args
  end

  task :another, [:option, :foo, :bar] do |task, args|
    puts "another #{args}"
    Rake::Task["thing:work"].invoke(args[:option], args[:foo], args[:bar])
    # or splat the args
    # Rake::Task["thing:work"].invoke(*args)
  end

end

Then

rake thing:work[1,2,3]
=> work: {:option=>"1", :foo=>"2", :bar=>"3"}

rake thing:another[1,2,3]
=> another {:option=>"1", :foo=>"2", :bar=>"3"}
=> work: {:option=>"1", :foo=>"2", :bar=>"3"}

NOTE: variable task is the the task object, not very helpful unless you know/care about Rake internals.

RAILS NOTE:

If running the task from rails, its best to preload the environment by adding => [:environment] which is a way to setup dependent tasks.

  task :work, [:option, :foo, :bar] => [:environment] do |task, args|
    puts "work", args
  end

desc 'an updated version'
task :task_name, [:arg1, :arg2] => [:dependency1, :dependency2] do |t, args|
    puts args[:arg1]
end