How do I setup rspec with rails 2.3.8 and bundler? - ruby-on-rails

Question

A lot of the guides I've been finding don't use bundler.
this is the part of the gemfile I'm using for tests:
group :test do
gem "cucumber"
gem "cucumber-rails"
gem "launchy"
gem "hpricot"
gem "gherkin"
gem "capybara"
gem "rspec"
gem "rack"
gem "rspec-rails"
gem "webrat"
gem "database_cleaner"
gem "factory_girl"
gem "shoulda", :require => nil
gem "shoulda-matchers", :git => "https://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda-matchers"
gem "cobravsmongoose"
gem "rcov"
gem "ZenTest"
gem "autotest-growl"
gem "inherited_resources", "1.0.2"
gem "responders", "0.4.2"
end
But even with all that, the generators never exist.
so doing: script/generate rspec
doesn't work, (can't find the rspec) generator
generators would be installed if the gems were installed as plugins... but I think that just adds bloat to the app, and different gems compile differently on different OSes.
So, anyone have any guides for setting up rspec with bundler with rails 2.3.x?

Answer 1

Setting up RSpec, Guard, and Spork on a Rails 2 project
I've done this a few times now; hopefully this will be helpful to anyone needing to maintain Rails 2.3 apps. This has worked great for the apps I've worked on, but I welcome contributions from others who suggest additional steps.
This guide assumes a Rails 2.3.x project on Bundler
Get rid of any old rspec plugins that are in your project, if any. RSpec bits may be hiding in:
Rakefile
lib/tasks/rspec.rake
vendor/plugins/rspec
(anything else you can find)
RSpec 2 is not compatible with Rails 2; use RSpec 1 (docs). Put the most recent compatible gem versions to your Gemfile:
group :test, :development do
gem 'test-unit', '1.2.3', :require => false # for rspec
gem 'rspec', '~> 1.2', :require => false
gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 1.2', :require => false
gem 'guard', :require => false
gem 'spork', '~> 0.8.0', :require => false
gem 'guard-rspec', :require => false
gem 'guard-spork', :require => false
gem 'growl', :require => false # notifications; optional
gem 'rb-fsevent', :require => false # for OSX; optional
gem 'listen', '>= 0.5.1', :require => false
gem 'machinist', '~> 2.0', :require => false
gem 'database_cleaner', '~> 0.9.1', :require => false
end
The :require => false options are optional, but it helps the app to start up faster in development if it doesn't have to load testing libraries outside of when SpecHelper.rb requires them.
Install the bundle. Use bundle update for any gems that were already in your Gemfile.
Ensure lib/tasks/rspec.rake and spec/spec_helper.rb do not exist.
script/generate rspec
Remove the config.gem line that was added to config/environments/test.rb; the app uses bundler.
spork --bootstrap
Then edit spec/spec_helper.rb and follow the instructions.
Move everything from the stock spec_helper.rb into the prefork block, except:
Dir[File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__),'support','**','*.rb'))].each {|f| require f}
belongs in each_run.
Install database_cleaner. In spec/spec_helper.rb,
In the prefork block:
require 'database_cleaner'
In the each_run block:
DatabaseCleaner.clean
Initialize Guardfile
guard init spork
guard init rspec
Modify the Guardfile's rspec guard to use the correct version and drb (spork):
guard 'rspec', :version => 1, :cli => '--drb --color' do
Modify the Guardfile as appropriate for your project
Run rake spec. You should get no output (if you have no tests). If you get errors, resolve them.
Run guard. No errors? Great, test away!
Problems? Try again more quickly by running spec spec instead of re-running guard.

Answer 2

We still have an app on rails 2.3.8, but we updated it to use bundler (Gemfile), and it has rspec and cucumber working as well.
Make sure you follow the bundler guide to make your app correctly use the Gemfile's gem loading instead of Rails' default: http://gembundler.com/rails23.html
After you get that preinitializer.rb and change the config/boot.rb working correctly, you might need to make sure you're using the right versions of rspec and cucumber.
I think just that generic gem 'rspec-rails' might try installing rspec 2 for you, but that only works on Rails 3 (I believe), so you might need to specifically tell it to use rspec 1.x.
Our test group looks like this (although I think some of these gems may be older than they need to be, it's been awhile since we've updated them since a rails 3 upgrade for the app is pending we're not too worried about what it looks like right now):
group :test, :cucumber do
gem 'autotest-fsevent'
gem 'test-unit', '~>1.2.3'
gem "hoe", "1.5.1"
gem 'autotest-rails', '4.1.0'
gem 'rspec', '1.3.2'
gem 'rspec-rails', '1.3.4'
gem 'cucumber', '0.10.0'#, '0.9.0'
# Change this shinanigans to 0.4.0 when it gets released ;)
gem 'cucumber-rails', '0.3.2'
gem 'database_cleaner', '0.5.2'
gem 'capybara', '0.3.9'
gem 'launchy'
gem 'dupe', '0.5.1'
gem 'factory_girl', '1.2.4'
gem 'email_spec', '~>0.6.2', :require => false
end
After doing this, and running bundle install, I am able to type the command script/generate --help which includes this in the output:
Installed Generators
Rubygems: business_time_config, cucumber, culerity, dupe, email_spec, feature, integration_spec, paperclip, rspec, rspec_controller, rspec_model, rspec_scaffold
Builtin: controller, helper, integration_test, mailer, metal, migration, model, observer, performance_test, plugin, resource, scaffold, session_migration
As you can see, the cucumber and rspec generators are in fact available there.
I think your problem might be the version of rspec it's installing. If it's installing rspec version 2, then that is tied to rails 3, which handles generators in gems differently I believe (I believe they have to be put in a different directory structure). That could be why your rails 2.3.x app isn't seeing them.
You don't have to follow my versions exactly, I'm not a fan (at all) of putting specific versions in a Gemfile but we ended up doing it here way back when because a) we didn't fully understand bundler, and b) We needed to make sure we were getting rails 2.3-compatible gems.
Hopefully this helps! Let me know if you have questions.

Answer 3

The reason the generators don't exist is that when you run rails generate ..., it's executing in the development environment while these gems are only loaded in the test environment.
Option 1
Add them to both development and test environments.
Option 2
Run rails generate ... RAILS_ENV=test
(I'm not positive that this option will work.)

Answer 4

In rails 5.1.4 you there are four easy steps to get your RSpec up and running:
group :development, :test do
gem "database_cleaner"
gem "rspec-rails"
end
Add the above gems to the :test and :development groups in your Gemfile.
run bundle install from the command line
run rails generate rspec:install from the command line, it will create the following files:
create .rspec
create spec
create spec/spec_helper.rb
create spec/rails_helper.rb
configure spec_helper.rb and rails_helper.rb
You can check more detailed info on: https://kolosek.com/rails-rspec-setup.