whenever: Make runner commands use bundle exec
whenever runner jobs can fail in cron because bundle exec is omitted, leading to Bundler load errors. A custom job_type restores the correct Rails runner command.
Run a single example group in RSpec
Run one RSpec example group or a single it example by line number in a long spec without executing the whole file.
How to enable template coverage support for simplecov
Template and eval coverage in Ruby can be tracked with SimpleCov from Ruby 3.2 onward, including Haml and ERB templates.
The Bark Blog » Testing Rails Model Plugins
Unfortunately, by default plugin tests are pretty bland. They use the plain unit test suite supplied by Ruby, and not any of the extended Rails test framework. This will leave our plugin’s test classes with no access to fixtures, database.yml configuration, or any of those nice class auto-loading features.
rake spec + rails_admin = weirdly failing specs
rails_admin specs can pass with rspec but fail under rake spec; setting ENV['SKIP_RAILS_ADMIN_INITIALIZER'] = 'false' in spec_helper restores the initializer.
Debugging Google Analytics
Analytics tracking can be hard to verify in the browser; a Chrome extension swaps in a debug version and prints tracking details to the JavaScript console.
JavaScript Sentry: How to check if errors will be reported
Quickly verify that a JavaScript Sentry setup reports browser errors by triggering a deliberate exception in a click handler.
Rspec_spinner or cucumber_spinner get into an infinite loop
mathn can make rspec_spinner and cucumber_spinner loop forever while rendering the progress bar.
Check apache config files' syntax
Validate Apache configuration syntax with apache2ctl configtest or apache2ctl -t; passing checks do not guarantee a successful server start.
Pre-releasing a Ruby gem
Release candidate and beta gem versions are treated as pre-releases and are ignored unless explicitly requested; RubyGems converts dash-separated SemVer pre-release tags to dot-separated versions.
Debian/Ubuntu: See what "apt" would install without actually doing it
Check which packages and versions apt would install before making changes. --dry-run simulates upgrades without touching the system.
You can now override all Spreewald steps with more specific versions
Avoid Cucumber::Ambiguous by defining a more specific step that overrides a generic one in Spreewald 1.5.0+.
Machinist blueprints do not work with a column :display
display conflicts with a reserved Machinist blueprint name, so a blueprint attribute using that label may fail unexpectedly.
Background - cucumber - GitHub
Shared setup adds context to scenarios in a feature and runs before each scenario, after Before hooks.
Pre-releasing an npm package
Publish npm pre-release versions on a separate tag so stable users do not receive alpha or beta builds by default.
Webmock < 3.12.1 cannot handle IPv6 addresses correctly
WebMock fails on IPv6 URLs because addresses need brackets before the port, causing invalid URI and port parsing errors in CarrierWave and SsrfFilter.
Timecop creates records in the past after calling Timecop.freeze
Timecop 0.3.4 and earlier can create records with timestamps in the past after Timecop.freeze; upgrading to 0.3.5 avoids the bug.
RSpec 1.x matcher for delegations
Custom RSpec matcher for verifying delegated methods in Ruby models, including prefixed delegation like author_name.
Strong params: Raise in development if unpermitted params are found
Unpermitted request data can slip into Rails controllers unless action_on_unpermitted_parameters is set to log or raise; development can fail fast on unexpected keys.
Let Webrat make a POST request
Webrat can submit a page request as POST by passing :post to visit, useful when a path must be tested with form-style submission.
A few recent CSS properties
Modern CSS features improve progressive enhancement, visual effects, touch handling, and scroll behavior across browser support levels.
Use Capybara commands inside an IFRAME
Interact with forms and buttons in embedded web pages by switching Capybara into an iframe; the same pattern also works for reusable Cucumber steps.
RSpec: How to get a full backtrace
Use rspec -b to print a full backtrace for failing examples and make the origin of an error easier to trace.
Auto-generate Cucumber navigation paths
Cucumber step definitions can map natural-language destinations to Rails route helpers, including list, new, edit, and record lookup paths.