Configure RSpec and Capybara with Ruby on Rails

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to configure your Rails app to use RSpec and Capaybara. In addition, we will also install and configure Factory Bot Rails and Database Cleaner, since these Gems help with a better testing experience.

1. Create a New App and Skip Tests

Since we’ll be using rspec-rails as the test framework, we need to skip the default Rails test suite.

  1. Open up a new terminal and create a new Rails app. Be sure to pass the -T flag. This will skip the default test suite

    rails new rspec-demo -d=postgresql -T
cd rspec-demo/

2. Install and Configure RSpec Rails

rspec-rails is a testing framework for Rails 3.x, 4.x and 5.x. rspec-rails extends Rails’ built-in testing framework to support rspec examples for requests, controllers, models, views, helpers, mailers and routing.

TLDR: rspec-rails is a popular alternative to the default Rails test suite.

  1. Add gem 'rspec-rails' to your Gemfile in the :development, :test group.

    group :development, :test do
  gem "rspec-rails", "~> 3.8", ">= 3.8.2"
end
  2. In the terminal window, run bundle install
  3. In the terminal window, run rails generate rspec:install per rspec-rails instructions

3. Install and Configure Factory Bot Rails

factory_bot is a fixtures replacement with a straightforward definition syntax, support for multiple build strategies (saved instances, unsaved instances, attribute hashes, and stubbed objects), and support for multiple factories for the same class (user, admin_user, and so on), including factory inheritance.

TLDR: factory_bot makes it easy to create sample data to test against

  1. Add gem 'factory_bot_rails' to your Gemfile in the :development, :test group.

    group :development, :test do
  gem "rspec-rails", "~> 3.8", ">= 3.8.2"
  gem "factory_bot_rails", "~> 5.1"
end
  2. In the terminal window, run bundle install
  3. Create a new directory at mkdir spec/factories/ by running mkdir spec/factories in the terminal window. This is required by factory_bot_rails
  4. Create a new directory at spec/support/ by running mkdir spec/support in the terminal window
  5. Create factory_bot.rb in spec/support by running touch spec/support/factory_bot.rb in the terminal window

  6. Open spec/support/factory_bot.rb and add the following:

    RSpec.configure { |config| config.include FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods }
  7. Open spec/rails_helper.rb and uncomment Dir[Rails.root.join('spec', 'support', '**', '*.rb')].each { |f| require f }.

4. Install and Configure Capybara

Capybara is a library written in the Ruby programming language which makes it easy to simulate how a user interacts with your application.

  1. Add gem 'capybara' to your Gemfile in the :development, :test group.

    group :development, :test do
  gem "rspec-rails", "~> 3.8", ">= 3.8.2"
  gem "factory_bot_rails", "~> 5.1"
  gem "capybara", "~> 3.29"
end
  2. In the terminal window, run bundle install
  3. Create capybara.rb in spec/support by running touch spec/support/capybara.rb in the terminal window

  4. Open spec/support/capybara.rb and add the following:

    require "capybara/rspec"

5. Install and Configure Database Cleaner

Database Cleaner is used to ensure a clean state for testing.

  1. Add gem 'database_cleaner' to your Gemfile in the :test group.

    group :test do
  gem "database_cleaner", "~> 1.7"
end
  2. In the terminal window, run bundle install

  3. Open spec/support/capybara.rb and add the following:

    require "capybara/rspec"
   
RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
   
  config.before(:suite) do
    raise(<<-MSG) if config.use_transactional_fixtures?
          Delete line `config.use_transactional_fixtures = true` from rails_helper.rb
          (or set it to false) to prevent uncommitted transactions being used in
          JavaScript-dependent specs.
   
          During testing, the app-under-test that the browser driver connects to
          uses a different database connection to the database connection used by
          the spec. The app's database connection would not be able to access
          uncommitted transaction data setup over the spec's database connection.
        MSG
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end
   
  config.before(:each) { DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction }
   
  config.before(:each, type: :feature) do
    # :rack_test driver's Rack app under test shares database connection
    # with the specs, so continue to use transaction strategy for speed.
    driver_shares_db_connection_with_specs =
      Capybara.current_driver == :rack_test
   
    unless driver_shares_db_connection_with_specs
      # Driver is probably for an external browser with an app
      # under test that does *not* share a database connection with the
      # specs, so use truncation strategy.
      DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
    end
  end
   
  config.before(:each) { DatabaseCleaner.start }
   
  config.append_after(:each) { DatabaseCleaner.clean }
end
  4. Comment out config.use_transactional_fixtures = true from spec/rails_helper.rb

6. Create Our First Test (Optional)

Now that our app’s test suite is configured with RSpec, Capybara, Factory Bot Rails and Database Cleaner, let’s write some tests to ensure everything is working.

  1. In the terminal window, run rails g model post title body:text to generate a new model.
  2. In the terminal window, run rails db:migrate to migrate the database. This should have generated spec/models/post_spec.rb and spec/models/post_spec.rb.

  3. Update spec/models/post_spec.rb with the following code:

    RSpec.describe Post, type: :model do
  describe "validations" do
    let(:post) { FactoryBot.build(:post) }
    it "should have a title" do
      post.title = nil
      expect(post).to_not be_valid
    end
  end
end

  4. Run rspec. The test should fail.

    F

Failures:

1. Post validations should have a title
  Failure/Error: expect(post).to_not be_valid
  expected #<Post id: nil, title: nil, body: "MyText", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil> not to be valid
  # ./spec/models/post_spec.rb:8:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Finished in 0.16554 seconds (files took 4.71 seconds to load)
1 example, 1 failure

Failed examples:

rspec ./spec/models/post_spec.rb:6 # Post validations should have a title

  5. Open app/models/post.rb and add the following validation:

    class Post < ApplicationRecord
  validates :title, presence: true
end

  6. Run rspec. The test should pass.

    .

Finished in 0.10767 seconds (files took 1.03 seconds to load)
1 example, 0 failures
  7. This was just an exercise to ensure the test suite is running correctly. For more examples on how to configure your tests, I recommend looking at RSpec Rails Examples and Better Specs