Question

My tests look like this:

<<< spec/models/user_shared.rb

shared_examples_for "a user" do
end

<<< spec/models/worker_spec.rb

require 'spec_helper'
require 'models/user_shared'

describe Worker do
  it_behaves_like "a user"
end

I can run rspec spec successfully. But autotest fails:

Exception encountered: #<ArgumentError: Shared example group 'a user' already exists>

This is, because the rspec command line generated by autotest includes the user_shared.rb:

/usr/local/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby -rrubygems -S /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290/gems/rspec-core-2.6.4/bin/rspec --tty [...] '/path/to/project/spec/models/worker_spec.rb' '/path/to/project/spec/models/user_shared.rb'
Running tests with args ["--color", "--tty", [...], "/path/to/project/spec/models/worker_spec.rb", "/path/to/project/spec/models/user_shared.rb"]...
Done.

Exception encountered: #<ArgumentError: Shared example group 'a user' already exists>

When I remove the '/path/to/project/spec/models/user_shared.rb' from the command line and execute it by hand, it works.

Now, if I change my user_shared.rb to this:

<<< spec/models/user_shared.rb

if !@included then
  @included = true
  shared_examples_for "a user" do
  end
end

it works with the command line generated by autotest, too. But it is an ugly workaround.

Since rspec knows only “*_spec” files are testes, how can autotest be configured like this?

In my Gemfile I have the following (relevant to testing):

<<<< Gemfile

gem 'autotest'
gem 'autotest-rails'

group :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails', '>= 2.6.1'
  gem 'shoulda-matchers'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails', '>= 1.0.2'
  gem 'capybara', '>= 1.0.0'
  gem 'cucumber-rails', '>= 1.0.2'
  gem 'database_cleaner', '>= 0.6.7'
  gem 'spork', '>= 0.9.0.rc'
end

Answer 1

Got it myself … reorganization of folder structure.

• created new folder spec/shared/ and moved all examples in there
• removed any require *_shared.rb from my examples
• added Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/shared/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f} to spec_helper.rb
• tweaked autotest:

.

<<< .autotest

  at.add_mapping(%r%^spec/shared/.*rb%) { |_, _|
    Dir['spec/**/*_spec.rb'] # could be tweaked to just run tests that have this example
                             # but for now I don't care - just run all tests
  }