Hey everyone!
A few days ago, I tried my hand at creating a gem. I’ve been putting it
off
for a long time because of the lack of documentation (or the lack of my
Googling skills). When I search how to create gems with RSpec, I get
pages
that talk about gem templates with the rspec option, as if that would
solve
it all.
If there are no tutorials, maybe I could ask for your help in setting it
up
for a gem:
Backgrounder
I’m asking because it’s a bit frustrating doing things by trial and
error. A
lot of the problems I’ve come across were that the files that
rspec-rails
loads for me aren’t automatically available in the gem, so I have to
manually include it. It became a problem when I had to test an
ActiveRecord
model, and worse when I had to test a controller. Currently, I’m stuck
at
the point where “get”, “put”, “post”, “delete” aren’t available in the
spec.
I asked about it in StackOverflow and got the
answerhttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/2543885/why-dont-rspecs-methods-get-post-put-delete-work-in-a-controller-sp,
but it doesn’t explain what I have to do to basically replicate those
methods.
What did I do?
As part of my trial and error process, I started including what
rspec-rails
includes
http://github.com/dchelimsky/rspec-rails/blob/master/lib/spec/rails.rb,
and
the REST actions don’t seem to trigger an undefined error anymore, but
now
there’s another “uninitialized constant Rails”. So… before I go
further,
maybe I’m approaching this wrong since I’m having such a difficult time.
What’s the best way to go about this? Is there a way to maybe include
Rails
and everything it has, for testing purposes? I know that you’re supposed
to
make gems framework agnostic but for brevity’s sake (and for my own
sanity)
I’m willing to make it very plugin-like for now. I’ve been reading and
researching for 3 days you see 
Thanks, and I apologize for the novel!
Ramon T.
On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Ramon T. [email protected]
wrote:
Hey everyone!
A few days ago, I tried my hand at creating a gem. I’ve been putting it off
for a long time because of the lack of documentation (or the lack of my
Googling skills). When I search how to create gems with RSpec, I get pages
that talk about gem templates with the rspec option, as if that would solve
it all.
Have you tried jeweler? Try this:
gem install jeweler
jeweler --help
jeweler --rspec --summary “My awesome gem, which solves problems”
–description “The awesome gem” awesome
cd awesome
rake -T
rake spec # write a real spec
rake version:write
rake install
See the Jeweler docs for more:
http://wiki.github.com/technicalpickles/jeweler/
If there are no tutorials, maybe I could ask for your help in setting it
up
but it doesn’t explain what I have to do to basically replicate those
What’s the best way to go about this? Is there a way to maybe include Rails
and everything it has, for testing purposes? I know that you’re supposed to
make gems framework agnostic but for brevity’s sake (and for my own sanity)
I’m willing to make it very plugin-like for now. I’ve been reading and
researching for 3 days you see
I’m not sure what your gem does, but if it has dependencies on Rails,
the
easiest way to develop it (in my experience) is to have a separate Rails
app
that uses your gem, and that is not part of the gem’s source code.
Then
that Rails app could have specs (and maybe Cucumber features) that rely
on
the correct implementation of your gem.
Maybe you could say a little more about what your gem does?
Aslak
Thanks for your reply aslak. Since then I’ve tried another approach -
having
a sample Rails application in the spec folder, much like
shouldahttp://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda/tree/master/test/rails_root/.
Still haven’t gotten it to work, but I’ll try anyway.
If I have a separate Rails app (which sounds MUCH easier to do - thank
you),
won’t it be slow doing TDD because I’d have to publish my gem, update it
in
the Rails app, run tests, then back to the gem source code to make
changes?
I wasn’t too ambitious with my first gem. It allows subscriptions. The
name
“acts_as_subscribable” should be descriptive enough
Ramon T.
Oh and yes, I’m using jeweler. 
Ramon T.
Hi Ramon,
Just a thought or 2.
I’d still test/spec your gem outside of any Rails app, and I wouldn’t
use a sample Rails app in the spec folder.
It sounds to me that you are writing a ‘acts_as_xxxxx’ type extension
to ActiveRecord. You should only need the AR gem installed as a
development dep for the gem.
You’d need:
gem.add_development_dependency “factory_girl”, “>= 0”
gem.add_development_dependency “rspec”, “>= 0”
gem.add_dependency ‘activerecord’, “>= 2.3”
in your Rakefile. Note the use of FactoryGirl. This should help you
fake stuff out for testing. No need for the full Rails stack, when all
you need is to create
some models.
In my case, I created a models folder in my gem and put my usual model
files in there. Then I require all of them in a Dir[].each block in my
soec_helper.rb.
With FactoryGirl, you don’t even need to require them first, but in
your case you probably need to to get the ‘acts_as_xxxx’
functionality.
HTH
Cheers,
Ed
Ed Howland
http://twitter.com/ed_howland
Thanks Ed I’ll give this a shot too. I was able to get the
activerecord part working though. My problem was testing the
controller that I wanted to generate for the rails app.
Things that I’m used to being in the controller spec (get, put, etc)
aren’t, because this RSpec installation is outside of rails. If I
could do this without putting a whole app I’d gladly do so as it
sounds cleaner.
Those methods come from
action_controller/test_unit or active_support/test_unit. I tried
including both but it didn’t work, and it’s still fuzzy to me.
Now, if I waste too much time figuring this out, I may just do what
aslak suggested: put those tests in a rails app and write tests for
the app that is using this gem. In my mind it sounds slow, as aslak
probably has an automatic method to do this, but it definitely sounds
easier than learning what needs to be included/required.
On Wednesday, March 31, 2010, Ed Howland [email protected] wrote:
In my case, I created a models folder in my gem and put my usual model
Ed
Ed Howland
http://greenprogrammer.wordpress.com
http://twitter.com/ed_howland
–
Ramon T.
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