Support cmds in for loops

[simonrouse9461]

Currently, if I want to run multiple commands in a for loop, I have to define a separate task,

one-task:
  cmd:
    for: [a, b, c]
    var:
      VAR: {{.ITEM}}
    task: another-task

another-task:
  cmds:
    - echo {{.VAR}}
    - echo {{.VAR}}

However, sometimes it's not convenient and doesn't worth it to define a separate task for just a few commands. I would prefer something like this,

one-task:
  cmd:
    for: [a, b, c]
    cmds:
      - echo {{.ITEM}}
      - echo {{.ITEM}}

This makes for loops much easier to use. Is there any specific reason why this is not allowed?

[barrykaplan]

This would really clean up a lot boilerplate. Even better would be to support nested for. I have typical scenarios where I loop over ENVIRONMENTS, then TENANTS, then SECRETS. It works, but its a lot noise.

[polarathene]

You probably should communicate better why you need cmds? If you don't want to call other task you can use cmd with your shell commands to run with each for item:

version: '3'

tasks:
  one-task:
    cmd:
      for: [a, b, c]
      cmd: |
        echo {{.ITEM}} 1
        echo {{.ITEM}} 2

$ go-task one-task
task: [one-task] echo a 1
echo a 2

a 1
a 2
task: [one-task] echo b 1
echo b 2

b 1
b 2
task: [one-task] echo c 1
echo c 2

c 1
c 2

The trick is the YAML multi-line string feature with |, the Task docs have a similar example demonstrating it's usage for another use-case.

[simonrouse9461]

First, I have to agree with the | trick you mentioned, and it is the exact workaround I'm using right now. However, in my opinion, the | trick is more of a hack to mimic the behavior of the real cmds just to make certain simple scenarios work. Essentially, using cmd with | trick is not logically consistent with how cmds is used elsewhere.

To clarify the example I've given, I tried to simplify it only for less ambiguity and to convey the underlying idea more clearly. It's not because I absolutely need cmds in that exact example. My actual point is that the real scenarios can get much more nasty. For example, it's possible that we need to call multiple other tasks in the for loop or even use multiple nested for loops in combination with multiple tasks. In such a scenario, the | trick no longer works, and we'll have to define other grouping tasks as helpers. That introduces more boilerplates and sacrifices the readability as well.

So, the true value of allowing cmds is not to enable more functionalities but instead to extend the flexibility and improve the self-consistency of the syntax, which in turn helps with reducing boilerplate and improving the readability of the code.