Question

I’m using Guard gem

At some time of development I need to track only a specific file or several files but not an entire project.

Is there some handy way to temporarily track a particular file?

I know it can be done by modifying guard file but I don’t think it’s a neat solution.

Answer 1

Actually you can just use focus: true in the it statement for instance:

In your Spec file.

it "needs to focus on this!", focus: true do
  #test written here.
end

Then in spec/spec_helper you need to add the config option.

RSpec.configure do |config| 
  config.treat_symbols_as_metadata_keys_with_true_values = true  
  config.filter_run :focus => true  
  config.run_all_when_everything_filtered = true 
end

Then Guard will automatically pick up test that is focused and run it only. Also the config.run_all_when_everything_filtered = true tells guard to run all of the tests when there is nothing filtered even though the name sounds misleading.

I find Ryan Bate’s rails casts to be very helpful on Guard and Spork.