Run specific tests via Rake

Geoffrey Grosenbach recently discoved what’s effectively method_missing for rake tasks. I’ve taken his experimental proposed rake task, and changed (I’m reluctant to say “improved”) it slighty.

This modified version uses a different syntax (rake test:foo:bar instead rake foo_bar) and regex matching for test names.

Usage

$ rake test:blog
=> Runs the full BlogTest unit test if it exists. If not, looks for BlogControllerTest and runs that.

$ rake test:blog:create
=> Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogTest unit test or BlogController functional test as described above. 

$ rake test:blog_controller
=> Runs all tests in the BlogControllerTest functional test

$ rake test:blog_controller:create
=> Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogControllerTest functional test	

Code

# Run specific tests or test files
# 
# rake test:blog
# => Runs the full BlogTest unit test
# 
# rake test:blog:create
# => Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogTest unit test
# 
# rake test:blog_controller
# => Runs all tests in the BlogControllerTest functional test
# 
# rake test:blog_controller
# => Runs the tests matching /create/ in the BlogControllerTest functional test	
rule "" do |t|
  # test:file:method
  if /test:(.*)(:([^.]+))?$/.match(t.name)
    arguments = t.name.split(":")[1..-1]
    file_name = arguments.first
    test_name = arguments[1..-1] 
    
    if File.exist?("test/unit/#{file_name}_test.rb")
      run_file_name = "unit/#{file_name}_test.rb" 
    elsif File.exist?("test/functional/#{file_name}_controller_test.rb")
      run_file_name = "functional/#{file_name}_controller_test.rb" 
    elsif File.exist?("test/functional/#{file_name}_test.rb")
      run_file_name = "functional/#{file_name}_test.rb" 
    end
    
    sh "ruby -Ilib:test test/#{run_file_name} -n /#{test_name}/" 
  end
end

Do whatever you want with the above code, it’s yours now.

Comments and Trackbacks

Nice! I think your syntax is better than mine, although having to type the whole word "controller" is a little verbose.

Since many people use similarly named models and controllers, there may be no way around it.

Yeah, that's pretty much why I modified it; I have both a person_test.rb and a person_controller_test.rb.

The above could probably be improved, by trying to look for a controller if the unit test isn't found, though. So rake test:person would run test/units/person.rb if it exists, and if not, look for test/functionals/person_controller.rb and run that.

So be it. The above code has been updated so rake test:foo now checks for FooTest first, and if that doesn't exist, looks for FooControllerTest.

What if I also use diffrent modules to group my controllers?
So the tests will be also grouped in (eg) admin/#{file_name}_controller_test.rb

It should be fairly easy to rewrite the code to handle that case as well - if it even needs rewriting. Go for it, there's no magic going on, it's just Ruby.

This was very helpful and I used it as a foundation to add redgreen to all rake test tasks.