Question

I use bundle exec autotest to run my test specs as I work however I’d also like to be able to drop in and out of the debugger.

I can’t figure out how to get autotest running and also listen for debug commands though. Every time it goes through a debugger statement it prints:

***** debugger statement ignored, use -d or --debug option to enable debugging

I’ve tried calling autotest with both of those options i.e.

bundle exec autotest --debugger
# => just ignores the debugger

bundle exec autotest -d
# => complains that -d is an invalid option

bundle exec autotest --debug
# => still doesn't trigger but advises 
#    "debugger statement ignored, use -d or --debug option to enable debugging"

How can I call the debugger while using autotest?

At the moment I always have to drop back to manually calling rspec spec -d

(My setup is Rails 3)

Answer 1

You can add the following to your .rspec file in the root of your project:

--debug

When autotest runs, it will execute rspec using the config file, and will jump into the debug console whenever any debugger statements are executed.