Skip an RSpec test case at runtime

Question

I'm running RSpec tests against a website product that exists in several different markets. Each market has subtly different combinations of features, etc. I would like to be able to write tests such that they skip themselves at runtime depending on which market/environment they are being run against. The tests should not fail when run in a different market, nor should they pass -- they're simply not applicable.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be an easy way to mark a test as skipped. How would I go about doing this without trying to inject "pending" blocks (which aren't accurate anyway?)

Sobranje

Answer 1

Use exclusion filters.

describe "market a", :market => 'a' do
   ...
end
describe "market b", :market => 'b' do
   ...
end
describe "market c", :market => 'c' do
   ...
end

RSpec.configure do |c|
  # Set these up programmatically; 
  # I'm not sure how you're defining which market is 'active'
  c.filter_run_excluding :market => 'a'
  c.filter_run_excluding :market => 'b'
  # Now only tests with ":market => 'c'" will run.
end

Or better still, use implicit filters.

describe "market a", :if => CurrentMarket.a? do # or whatever
   ...
end

Thickwitted

Implicit filters seem like the way to go. I'm surprised that there seems to be no way for the test to report to the formatter that it was excluded :/ – Sobranje

Answer 2

I spotted this question looking for a way to really skip examples that I know are going to fail now, but I want to "unskip" them once the situation's changed. So for rspec 3.8 I found one could use skip inside an example just like this:

it 'is going to fail under several circumstances' do
  skip("Here's the reason") if conditions_met?
  expect(something)
end

Actually, in most situations (maybe not as complicated as in this question) I would rather use pending instead of skip, 'cause it will notify me if tests stop failing, so I can "unskip" them. As we all know that skipped tests will never be performed ever again =)

Flagelliform

@Sobranje Actually I would rather use pending instead of skip, 'cause it will notify me if tests stop failing, so I can "unskip" them. As we all know that skipped tests will never be performed ever again =) Will edit my reply in a sec – Flagelliform

And how to skip depending on configuration. Some tests are valid only in particular configurations. UPDATE: got it, use the if: condition parameter to describe or context. – Golter