Posted 7 months ago. Visible to the public. Repeats.

RSpec: run a single spec (Example or ExampleGroup)

RSpec allows you to mark a single Example/ExampleGroup so that only this will be run. This is very useful when using a test runner like guard.

Add the following config to spec/spec_helper.rb:

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RSpec.configure do |config|
  # These two settings work together to allow you to limit a spec run
  # to individual examples or groups you care about by tagging them with
  # `:focus` metadata. When nothing is tagged with `:focus`, all examples
  # get run.
  config.filter_run_including :focus => true
  config.run_all_when_everything_filtered = true
  ...
  
end

Now you can mark a single Example/ExampleGroup with the "focus"-tag so only the tagged spec will be run:

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describe SomeClass do
  it 'does great stuff', :focus do
    ... 
  end
  ...
end

Alternatively you can prepend f to any of it, describe and context which will result in fit, fdescribe and fcontext:

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describe SomeClass do
  fit 'does great stuff' do
    ... 
  end
  ...
end

Analogously you can exclude Examples or Example Groups from being run by prepending x (xit, xdescribe and xcontext). Good thing is that those will be shown as pending in the RSpec output, so you won't be tempted to commit excluded Examples to source control.

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