Selectively ignoring exceptions in examples

Testing RSpec
1

Hi all

Long time since I’ve posted here, hope you’re all well :slight_smile:

I have a question about ignoring exceptions when they’re not
interesting. For example, I have a few cases in my code along these
lines

it "prints an error" do
  expect {
    run_command(%w[ missing_wallet.dat ])
  }.to raise_error

  stream_bundle.captured_error.should eq "Couldn't find wallet file:

missing_wallet.dat\n"
end

it "raises a CLI::CommandError" do
  expect {
    run_command(%w[ missing_wallet.dat ])
  }.to raise_error(CLI::CommandError)
end

But in the first example, I’m only bothered about the output, not the
error. So I was thinking of writing something along the lines of:

it "prints an error" do
  ignoring_errors {
    run_command(%w[ missing_wallet.dat ])
  }
  stream_bundle.captured_error.should eq "Couldn't find wallet file:

missing_wallet.dat\n"
end

Now obviously that wouldn’t be hard to add as a helper method. But it
got me thinking

  • Do any of you do this?
  • Does RSpec already let you somehow?
  • Is it a useful convention?
  • Is it hiding anything else? (I don’t use exceptions much, so I may be
    abusing them.)

Cheers
Ash

–
http://www.patchspace.co.uk/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashmoran