Ruby on Rails: Switch from test_unit to rspec

Question

I'm going through a tutorial that has suggested using rspec, but I have already gone through a lot of default rails installation. I really don't want to have to redo the installation at all. Anyway, when I run

$ rails g integration_test named

I get

  invoke  test_unit
  create    test/integration/named_test.rb

When I run bundle, various rspec gems are listed, but test_unit is not. The tutorial seems to have rails invoke rspec instead of test_unit without doing anything additional. How do I get rails to use rspec with the integration test generator command?

Brow

Answer 1

In your config/application.rb file :

config.generators do |g|
  g.test_framework :rspec
end

Now when you run your generators (example rails generate scaffold post), you get rspec test files. Remember to restart your server. For more information on generators see:

RailsCasts #216 Generators in Rails 3

If you really want to use the integration_test generator you'll need to specifically modify the command:

rails g integration_test named --integration-tool=rspec

Verbenia

I had already done that .. what do you mean by restart the server? It was never running. – Brow

i mean restarting spork or your test interface. If you have properly done that and execute 'rails g scaffold --help' you should be seeing 'rspec' as the default testing framework. Check my edit as well. – Verbenia

I updated the config/application.rb as you specified and ran rails g scaffold --help and it still says test_unit. Is there something I need to do to rerun the configuration or some way to manually change these settings? – Brow

For future users wanting to go the other way, leaving this comment for completeness: Use the above answer with g.test_framework :test_unit . – Lowman

how do I switch back? Can I use both generators at once? – Stereotype

with the Rails app I'm testing on 6.1 (not sure which version this became true...) ... this method no longer works and gives me configuration.rb:97:in method_missing': undefined method test_framework' for #<Rails::Application::Configuration:0x00007fca9b924f10> (NoMethodError) ; For Rails 6-- see other answer about the gem being in the :test group but not the :development group – Ochoa

Answer 2

Working with Rails 3.2.8 and rspec-rails 2.11.4, I discovered that my problem was in my Gemfile. I had rspec-rails in the :test group but not the :development group. Since Rails defaults to running in development mode (including when you're running generate), rspec-rails has to be in your :development group for it to hook into the generators. Once I had that in place, everything worked fine.

Scriptwriter

+1 rspec-rails install as railitie github.com/rspec/rspec-rails/blob/master/lib/… and configures itself as test framework and integration tool. So one can include the gem in a shared group in the gemfile group :development, :test do – Frida

Still relevant 7 years later! – Gallard

Answer 3

As of Rails 3.2.12, follow these steps in order

rails new app_name --skip-test-unit

Add rspec-rails to your Gemfile in the development, test group

group :development, :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails'
end

Run bundle install

Run the generator

rails generate rspec:install

... and cleanup your existing test directory:

rm -Rf $RAILS_ROOT/test    

Pentomic

This will works if the project is already created too. Just ignore the rails new command. – Plumule

Watch out using the rm -Rf $RAILS_ROOT/test command, you'll remove your mailer previews too... – Sloth

Answer 4

Came across this issue today. application.rb has to be updated with:

config.generators do |g|
  g.test_framework :rspec
  g.integration_tool :rspec
end

Marquismarquisate

editing the application.rb file is no longer required, at least on Rails 3.2 with rspec-rails – Abutting

Answer 5

To use RSpec instead of default Test::Unit, run following command first

$ rails generate rspec:install

This command will create following folder/files

create  .rspec
create  spec
create  spec/spec_helper.rb

Now whenever you used generator to generate rails components like controller, model etc, it will create corresponding RSpecs.

Charleton

This will not work (rails 4) if you don't have rspec in your Gemfile already. See fontno's answer below. – Mac

how do I switch back? Can I use both generators at once? – Stereotype

Answer 6

In config/application, add this code

 config.generators do |g|
       g.test_framework  :rspec
       g.integration_tool :rspec
 end

Smithereens

Answer 7

1. when create new rails app, skip TestUnit framework, or it will generate test_unit directory.

$rails new your_app --skip-test-unit

2. add below code to your_app/config/application.rb file:

config.generators do |g| g.test_framework :rspec end

3. add below code to your_app's Gemfile:

group :test, :development do gem 'rspec-rails' end save it, and run bundle install to install rspec gem

4. Initialize the spec/ directory

rails generate rspec:install

more details, please refer: https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails

Groveman

Answer 8

What I found that I did that some of the other methods works still is to check my spelling....I had what @tovodeverett had grouping rspec-rails with :development and :test but spelt development incorrectly. That fixed my issue but I was generating tests with test_unit instead of rspec.

Cranium

Answer 9

$ rails g model Account
      invoke  active_record
      create    db/migrate/20140205052617_create_accounts.rb
      create    app/models/account.rb
      invoke    test_unit
      create      test/models/account_test.rb
      create      test/fixtures/accounts.yml
$ rails d model Account

Running script/rails generate rspec:install does not add rspec as default framework. Added below command in config/application.rb and then it works

config.generators do |g|
  g.test_framework :rspec
end
$ rails g model Account
      invoke  active_record
      create    db/migrate/20140205052957_create_accounts.rb
      create    app/models/account.rb
      invoke    rspec
      create      spec/models/account_spec.rb
$ rails -v
Rails 4.0.2

Markova