The RSpec Style Guide

This RSpec style guide recommends best practices so that real-world Ruby programmers can write code that can be maintained by other real-world Ruby programmers. A style guide that reflects real-world usage gets used, and a style guide that holds to an ideal that has been rejected by the people it is supposed to help risks not getting used at all – no matter how good it is.

The guide is separated into several sections of related rules. I've tried to add the rationale behind the rules (if it's omitted I've assumed that is pretty obvious).

The guide is still a work in progress - some rules are lacking examples, some rules don't have examples that illustrate them clearly enough. In due time these issues will be addressed - just keep them in mind for now.

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Table of Contents

• RSpec
• Views
• Controllers
• Models
• Mailers
• Rake Tasks
• Miscellaneous
• Contributing
• Spread the Word

RSpec

• Try to use just one expectation per example, within reason.

  # bad
  describe ArticlesController do
    #...
  
    describe 'GET new' do
      it 'assigns new article and renders the new article template' do
        get :new
        assigns[:article].should be_a_new Article
        response.should render_template :new
      end
    end
  
    # ...
  end
  
  # good
  describe ArticlesController do
    #...
  
    describe 'GET new' do
      it 'assigns a new article' do
        get :new
        assigns[:article].should be_a_new Article
      end
  
      it 'renders the new article template' do
        get :new
        response.should render_template :new
      end
    end
  
  end

• Keep the full spec name (concatentation of the nested descriptions) grammatically correct.

  • Top level: use describe with a constant name: describe User ...
  • 2nd level: use describe with a method name: describe "#awesome?"
  • Inner blocks: use a context that starts with when: context "when user is unsubscribed"
  • Example describes the expectation: it "is false".
  • Full spec name: "User#awesome? when user is unsubscribed is false"

• Do not use "should" in our example names.

  # good
  it "returns true"
  
  # bad
  it "should return true"

• Write expectations at a high level, removed from logic and implementation details.

  # bad
  it "calls more_results if i=0" do
    # ...
  end
  
  # good
  context "no results are returned by the initial search" do
    it "attempts to find more results" do
      # ...
    end
  end

• Use describe for concepts which don't in themselves vary (e.g. "callbacks, validations, <method_name>"). Typically these are nouns.

• Name describe blocks as follows:

  • use "description" for non-methods

  • use pound "#method" for instance methods

  • use dot ".method" for class methods

    class Article
      def summary
        #...
      end
    
      def self.latest
        #...
      end
    end
    
    # the spec...
    describe Article
      describe '#summary'
        #...
      end
    
      describe '.latest'
        #...
      end
    end

• Do not write iterators to generate tests.

  # bad
  [:new, :show, :index].each do |action|
    "it returns 200" do
      get action
      response.should be_ok
    end
  end

• Use Factory Girl to create test objects.

• Try to avoid mocking and stubbing, favoring test parameters or attributes instead. When resorting to mocking and stubbing, only mock against a small, stable, obvious (or documented) API, so stubs are likely to represent reality after future refactoring.

• Valid reasons to use stubs/mocks:

  • Performance: To prevent running a slow, unrelated task.

  • Determinism: To ensure the test gives the same result each time. e.g. Time.now, Kernel#rand, external web services.

  • Vendoring: When relying on 3rd party code used as a "black box", which wasn't written with testability in mind.

  • Legacy: Stubbing old code that requires complex setup. (New code should not require complex setup!)

  • BDD: To remove the dependence on code that does not yet exist.

  • Controller / Functional tests:

    In a controller spec, we don't care about how our data objects are created or what data they contain; we are writing expectations for the functional behavior of that controller, and that controller only. Mocks and stubs are used to decouple from the model layer and stay focused on the task of specing the controller.

    joahking, RailsForum: http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=68311#p68311

• Use let blocks instead of before(:each) blocks to create data for the spec examples. let blocks get lazily evaluated.

  # use this:
  let(:article) { FactoryGirl.create(:article) }
  
  # ... instead of this:
  before(:each) { @article = FactoryGirl.create(:article) }

Views

• The directory structure of the view specs spec/views matches the one in app/views. For example the specs for the views in app/views/users are placed in spec/views/users.

• The naming convention for the view specs is adding _spec.rb to the view name, for example the view _form.html.haml has a corresponding spec _form.html.haml_spec.rb.

• spec_helper.rb need to be required in each view spec file.

• The outer describe block uses the path to the view without the app/views part. This is used by the render method when it is called without arguments.

  # spec/views/articles/new.html.haml_spec.rb
  require 'spec_helper'
  
  describe 'articles/new.html.haml' do
    # ...
  end

• The method assign supplies the instance variables which the view uses and are supplied by the controller.

  # spec/views/articles/edit.html.haml_spec.rb
  describe 'articles/edit.html.haml' do
  it 'renders the form for a new article creation' do
    assign(
      :article,
      mock_model(Article).as_new_record.as_null_object
    )
    render
    rendered.should have_selector('form',
      method: 'post',
      action: articles_path
    ) do |form|
      form.should have_selector('input', type: 'submit')
    end
  end

• The helpers specs are separated from the view specs in the spec/helpers directory.

Controllers

• Mock the models and stub their methods. Testing the controller should not depend on the model creation.

• Test only the behaviour the controller should be responsible about:

  • Execution of particular methods

  • Data returned from the action - assigns, etc.

  • Result from the action - template render, redirect, etc.

    ```Ruby
    # Example of a commonly used controller spec
    # spec/controllers/articles_controller_spec.rb
    # We are interested only in the actions the controller should perform
    # So we are mocking the model creation and stubbing its methods
    # And we concentrate only on the things the controller should do
    
    describe ArticlesController do
      # The model will be used in the specs for all methods of the controller
      let(:article) { mock_model(Article) }
    
      describe 'POST create' do
        before { Article.stub(:new).and_return(article) }
    
        it 'creates a new article with the given attributes' do
          Article.should_receive(:new).with(title: 'The New Article Title').and_return(article)
          post :create, message: { title: 'The New Article Title' }
        end
    
        it 'saves the article' do
          article.should_receive(:save)
          post :create
        end
    
        it 'redirects to the Articles index' do
          article.stub(:save)
          post :create
          response.should redirect_to(action: 'index')
        end
      end
    end
    ```
    

• Use context when the controller action has different behaviour depending on the received params.

  # A classic example for use of contexts in a controller spec is creation or update when the object saves successfully or not.
  
  describe ArticlesController do
    let(:article) { mock_model(Article) }
  
    describe 'POST create' do
      before { Article.stub(:new).and_return(article) }
  
      it 'creates a new article with the given attributes' do
        Article.should_receive(:new).with(title: 'The New Article Title').and_return(article)
        post :create, article: { title: 'The New Article Title' }
      end
  
      it 'saves the article' do
        article.should_receive(:save)
        post :create
      end
  
      context 'when the article saves successfully' do
        before { article.stub(:save).and_return(true) }
  
        it 'sets a flash[:notice] message' do
          post :create
          flash[:notice].should eq('The article was saved successfully.')
        end
  
        it 'redirects to the Articles index' do
          post :create
          response.should redirect_to(action: 'index')
        end
      end
  
      context 'when the article fails to save' do
        before { article.stub(:save).and_return(false) }
  
        it 'assigns @article' do
          post :create
          assigns[:article].should be_eql(article)
        end
  
        it 're-renders the "new" template' do
          post :create
          response.should render_template('new')
        end
      end
    end
  end

Models

• Do not mock the models in their own specs.

• Use Factory Girl or Mechanize to make real objects.

• It is acceptable to mock other models or child objects.

• Create the model for all examples in the spec to avoid duplication.

• Avoid unnecessary database calls.

  describe Article
    let(:article) { FactoryGirl.build(:article) }
  end

• Add an example ensuring that the fabricated model is valid.

  describe Article
    it 'is valid with valid attributes' do
      article.should be_valid
    end
  end

• When testing validations, use have(x).errors_on to specify the attibute which should be validated. Using be_valid does not guarantee that the problem is in the intended attribute.

  # bad
  describe '#title'
    it 'is required' do
      article.title = nil
      article.should_not be_valid
    end
  end
  
  # preferred
  describe '#title'
    it 'is required' do
      article.title = nil
      article.should have(1).error_on(:title)
    end
  end

Mailers

• The mailer spec should verify that:

  • the subject is correct

  • the receiver e-mail is correct

  • the e-mail is sent to the right e-mail address

  • testing the email body should be done in a view spec

    describe SubscriberMailer
      let(:subscriber) { FactoryGirl.build(:subscription, email: 'johndoe@test.com', name: 'John Doe') }
    
      describe 'successful registration email'
        subject { SubscriptionMailer.successful_registration_email(subscriber) }
    
        its(:subject) { should == 'Successful Registration!' }
        its(:from) { should == ['info@your_site.com'] }
        its(:to) { should == [subscriber.email] }
      end
    end

Rake Tasks

• Rake tasks should be dumb (one-liners ideally), and call out to a model or library class which is tested like any other.

Miscellaneous

• Avoid incidental state as much as possible.

  describe Article do
    let(:article) { FactoryGirl.create(:article) }
    let(:another_article) { FactoryGirl.create(:article) }
  
    describe "#publish" do
      # bad
      it "publishes the article" do
        article.publish
        
        # Creating another shared Article test object above would cause this
        # test to break
        Article.count.should == 2
      end
  
      # good
      it "publishes the article" do
        -> { article.publish }.should change(Article, :count).by(1)
      end
    end
  end

• Shared examples are helpful for tidying up repetitive expectations, but should be written to be composable if possible to allow for situations where many but not all of the shared expectations are required.

• Be careful not to focus on being "DRY" by moving repeated expectations into a shared environment too early, as this can lead to brittle tests that rely too much on one other.

Contributing

Feel free to open tickets or send pull requests with improvements. Thanks in advance for your help!

Spread the Word

A community-driven style guide is of little use to a community that doesn't know about its existence. Tweet about the guide, share it with your friends and colleagues. Every comment, suggestion or opinion we get makes the guide just a little bit better. And we want to have the best possible guide, don't we?