How to load a spec_helper.rb automatically in RSpec 2

Question

When developing gems in Ruby, I almost always need a file in which I can configure RSpec to my needs and maybe before doing that, require some helper modules which should be available in all my spec examples.

In Rails applications a file named spec/spec_helper.rb is used for that. One thing that annoys me is that in the typical Rails environment, you have to require this spec_helper.rb file in every file that contains examples for it to be loaded. In the past I had a lot of problems with this related to changing load paths and relative require paths inside the example files.

Now for my gems, I would wish to have a way to just say RSpec to require the spec_helper.rb file before loading any of the examples files. Independent of the fact if I call rspec executable, or the rake spec task which I may define in my Rakefile.

I know I can tell RSpec only the location of my spec_helper.rb is this spec_helper.rb requires all the example files manually, but I would also like to avoid the additional maintenance of that approach.

Is there a nicer way to accomplish this?

score 114 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 09 '11 at 19:56

114

In RSpec 2, the /spec folder is always automatically on your load path. This means that all you need is:

require 'spec_helper'

at the top of your spec files. This will always load /spec/spec_helper.rb, and is the minimum you'll be able to get away with.

This means you don't need a horrid approach such as:

require File.join(File.dirname(File.dirname(__FILE__)), 'spec_helper.rb')

(which needs to be updated for different nesting levels).

Also you can add to your .rspec file the option: --require spec_helper, which will require this file in each spec file, without the manual require statement at the top.

edited Sep 09 '11 at 19:56

arikfr

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answered Feb 23 '11 at 21:00

Jacob

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@afrikfr: Dude, *thank you* for that tip about --require! I'll never have to type that damn line again! (\me runs of to delete a bunch of noise) – Jacob Sep 14 '11 at 20:25

score 47 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 15 '14 at 11:25

47

The --require spec_helper line is automatically added to the .rspec file for RSpec 3.0 when you do rspec --init.

edited Jul 15 '14 at 11:25

Arturo Herrero

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answered Jun 27 '14 at 19:23

Doug

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This is the cleanest answer IMO – Andrew Mackenzie Mar 07 '16 at 13:52
This speaks to the _wisdom_, rather than the _mechanics_, of using this setting. It means a lot to me that the developers thought this is a good default, and this reinforces my decision to adopt the practice. – Keith Bennett Jul 16 '22 at 09:58

How to load a spec_helper.rb automatically in RSpec 2

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