Test Rake Tasks

Question

I am developing a ROR app that relies on many custom Rake tasks.

What is the best way to test them?

Answer 1

I like the PivotalLabs' way the most. However, I generalized and modified their code as followed in my app:

# file: spec/tasks/my_rake_file_spec.rb
require 'spec_helper'
require 'rake'

describe 'my_rake_file.rake' do
  before :all do
    Rake.application.rake_require 'tasks/my_rake_file'
    Rake::Task.define_task(:environment)
  end

  let(:run_rake_task) {
    Rake::Task[task_name].reenable
    Rake.application.invoke_task task_name
  }

  describe 'my_task_name' do
    let(:task_name) { "my_task_name" }

    it "creates 10 cars" do
      run_rake_task
      Car.count.should == 10
    end
  end
end

Also, I extracted the heavy lifting of my_rake_file.rake's code to a module, which is stored in lib/