Hartl Rails Tutorial - ruby-on-rails

Question

I ran into some trouble with section 6.2.1 (validity test) of Michael Hartl's "Rails Tutorial" and realized that I don't even have a test directory created as a result of
$ rails generate model User name:string email:string
While the tutorial says that I should see the output
invoke active_record
create db/migrate/20140724010738_create_users.rb
create app/models/user.rb
invoke test_unit
create test/models/user_test.rb
create test/fixtures/users.yml
all I am actually seeing is:
invoke active_record
identical db/migrate/20141020202519_create_users.rb
identical app/models/user.rb
invoke rspec
identical spec/models/user_spec.rb
I've researched tons of different sites looking for the answer and noticed people were suggesting to move rspec-rails around in the Gemfile but from what I can see, mine is placed properly. Here is my Gemfile:
source 'https://rubygems.org'
ruby '2.0.0'
#ruby-gemset=railstutorial_rails_4_0
gem 'rails', '4.0.8'
gem 'bootstrap-sass', '2.3.2.0'
gem 'sprockets', '2.11.0'
group :development, :test do
gem 'sqlite3', '1.3.8'
gem 'rspec-rails', '2.13.1'
gem 'guard-rspec', '2.5.0'
gem 'spork-rails', '4.0.0'
gem 'guard-spork', '1.5.0'
gem 'childprocess', '0.3.6'
end
group :test do
gem 'selenium-webdriver', '2.35.1'
gem 'capybara', '2.1.0'
end
gem 'sass-rails', '4.0.3'
gem 'uglifier', '2.1.1'
gem 'coffee-rails', '4.0.1'
gem 'jquery-rails', '3.0.4'
gem 'turbolinks', '1.1.1'
gem 'jbuilder', '1.0.2'
group :doc do
gem 'sdoc', '0.3.20', require: false
end
group :production do
gem 'pg', '0.15.1'
gem 'rails_12factor', '0.0.2'
end
I would really appreciate any help! Thanks

Answer 1

What is happening here is rspec-rails is overriding the default behavior of rails.
Rails by default ships with test_unit (as shown by the invoke test_unit in original output).
Instead with rspec, you generate spec files instead. Thus you have invoke rspec and spec/models/user_spec.rb.
If you remove rspec-rails from your Gemfile and run the bundle install and then rails g model User name:string email:string again, it will generate the test files according to the tutorial.

Answer 2

If you want the same output, put the related rspec gem in the test group only.
group :development, :test do
gem 'sqlite3', '1.3.8'
gem 'spork-rails', '4.0.0'
gem 'guard-spork', '1.5.0'
gem 'childprocess', '0.3.6'
end
group :test do
gem 'selenium-webdriver', '2.35.1'
gem 'capybara', '2.1.0'
gem 'rspec-rails', '2.13.1'
gem 'guard-rspec', '2.5.0'
end
And the update:
bundle update
It worked for me for the inverse process (invoke rspec on generating the model) placing rspec gems into development and test groups.
If you don't want to use rspec as the test suite, just remove the gems from your gemfile.

Answer 3

It looks like the online version of the Rails Tutorial has recently undergone a major overhaul. Previously, the tutorial used rspec for testing; now it's using the test framework that comes with rails. If you look at section 3.1, the Gemfile for the sample app now looks like this:
source 'https://rubygems.org'
gem 'rails', '4.2.0.beta2'
gem 'sass-rails', '5.0.0.beta1'
gem 'uglifier', '2.5.3'
gem 'coffee-rails', '4.0.1'
gem 'jquery-rails', '4.0.0.beta2'
gem 'turbolinks', '2.3.0'
gem 'jbuilder', '2.2.3'
gem 'rails-html-sanitizer', '1.0.1'
gem 'sdoc', '0.4.0', group: :doc
group :development, :test do
gem 'sqlite3', '1.3.9'
gem 'byebug', '3.4.0'
gem 'web-console', '2.0.0.beta3'
gem 'spring', '1.1.3'
end
group :test do
gem 'minitest-reporters', '1.0.5'
gem 'mini_backtrace', '0.1.3'
gem 'guard-minitest', '2.3.1'
end
group :production do
gem 'pg', '0.17.1'
gem 'rails_12factor', '0.0.2'
end
And in section 3.3.1, the first test looks like this:
require 'test_helper'
class StaticPagesControllerTest < ActionController::TestCase
test "should get home" do
get :home
assert_response :success
end
test "should get help" do
get :help
assert_response :success
end
end
Because the tutorial is now using a different test framework, you will no longer get the same output as the tutorial. And in fact, you will no longer be able to follow along with the tests in the tutorial. Unfortunately, I think you will have to start over. I was on chapter 7, so I am in the same position as you. I emailed the author to see if he would be willing to put up the old version somewhere.
Michael Hartl got back to me. Here's a link to the old version:
http://rails-4-0.railstutorial.org/book