CODEWITHSUNDEEP
rspec
Obromios
Obromios

Reputation: 16383

How to detect if an rspec file is being run as part of a test suite

From inside the spec file how do I detect if the file is being run as part of a test suite or by itself. If it is being run by itself, I want verbose output, but if it is being as one file of many, then I want to suppress the output.

For example if the file is 'spec/models/my_model_spec.rb' I want to tell the difference between

rspec spec

and

rspec spec/models/my_model_spec.rb

Upvotes: 1

Views: 524

Answers (1)

aridlehoover
aridlehoover

Reputation: 3585

I found this commented out in my spec_helper.rb file:

# Many RSpec users commonly either run the entire suite or an individual
# file, and it's useful to allow more verbose output when running an
# individual spec file.
if config.files_to_run.one?
  # Use the documentation formatter for detailed output,
  # unless a formatter has already been configured
  # (e.g. via a command-line flag).
  config.default_formatter = "doc"
end

Moving it into the RSpec.configure do |config| block produced the results you're looking for.

EDIT

RSpec supplies four different output formatters: progress, documentation, HTML, and JSON. The last two are self explanatory. The first one, progress, is the default formatter. It prints dots representing the progress within the test run. Green dots equal a successful test run.

The other formatter, documentation, uses the describe, context, and it descriptions to show test results. So, given this RSpec structure: 

describe Stack do
  describe '#push' do
    context 'when the stack is empty' do
      it 'increases the size of the stack by 1'
    end
    context 'when the stack is full' do
      it 'throws a stack overflow exception'
      it 'does not increase the size of the stack'
    end
  end
end

The Documentation formatter would output this:

Stack
  #push
    when the stack is empty
      increases the size of the stack by 1
    when the stack is full
      throws a stack overflow exception
      does not increase the size of the stack

You can try out the various formatters on the command line, like this:

rspec --format progress
rspec --format doc (or documentation)
rspec --format html
rspec --format json

The configuration code in the spec_helper above allows you to change the default_formatter for situations where you are only running one file. You can always override the default formatter by specifying a different one on the command line.

The comments on the RSpec source code helped me answer this question: https://github.com/rspec/rspec-core/blob/7b6b9c3f2e2878213f97d6fc9e9eb23c323cfe1c/lib/rspec/core/formatters.rb

Upvotes: 1

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