Rails project using spork - always have to use spork?

Question

If I am using spork in my rails project and have a spec_helper.rb file like this

require 'spork'

Spork.prefork do
  ...
end

Spork.each_run do
  ...
end

Does it mean I need to ALWAYS have spork running when I run my specs via rspec spec ? Meaning, if I haven't executed $ spork in a terminal window yet, does it mean my specs will not run properly?

Answer 1

No. We have spork in our spec helper and we don't use it a lot of the time, since it slows the tests down overall on larger suites. We only run spork when we're rapidly iterating, running a small subset of the tests repeatedly during TDD. When spork is not running, we simply do not pass the --drb option to RSpec and everything runs without Spork. Obvious Spork is there, but it doesn't get used unless we start it and run our specs with --drb.

If you don't want the prefork blocks and stuff there, require an environment variable to be set before you execute them, so you can conditionally by-pass them, if they are causing an issue for you.

EDIT | I've just split our spec helper into multiple files so the prefork block isn't loaded at all when we're not running Spork. It's not needed, but here's how I did it.

spec_helper.rb loads one of two different files after doing a quick environment check)

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'

# Conditional Spork.prefork (this comment is needed to fool Spork's `bootstrapped?` check)
if /spork/i =~ $0 || RSpec.configuration.drb?
  require File.expand_path("../spec_helper_spork", __FILE__)
else
  require File.expand_path("../spec_helper_base", __FILE__)
end

spec_helper_base.rb is just a copy of the original spec_helper without Spork (you can just rename it back if you delete Spork)

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'

require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'database_cleaner'

# Load all .rb helper files under the support/ directory
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each { |file| require file }

RSpec.configure do |config|
  # ... the usual stuff ...
end

And finally spec_helper_spork.rb is just a wrapper around spec_helper_base.rb

require 'spork'

Spork.prefork do
  require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
  require 'rspec/rails'
  require 'database_cleaner'
end

Spork.each_run do
  $rspec_start_time = Time.now
  require File.expand_path("../spec_helper_base", __FILE__)
end

The only time spec_helper_spork.rb is loaded is if you:

a) Invoke the spork command b) Run your specs with the --drb option

This is working fine for me. I can't stress enough though, that it's not needed. Your specs will run fine without spork running provided you don't pass the --drb option anyway. I do like having it completely split out of our spec helper now that I've done this though.

Answer 2

I do this in spec_helper.rb so that I can still run RSpec without Spork:

# spec/spec_helper.rb
if Spork.using_spork?
  Spork.prefork do
    # Loading more in this block will cause your tests to run faster. However,
    # if you change any configuration or code from libraries loaded here, you'll
    # need to restart spork for it take effect.
  end 

  Spork.each_run do
    FactoryGirl.reload
  end
end

Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config| 
  # usual RSpec config stuff
end

I use this with the guard-spork gem, so the stuff in the if block only runs when I use guard with Spork in the Guardfile.

Answer 3

Based on the answer from @d11wtq, I've adjusted it so I don't have to maintain separate config files:

spec_helper_setup = proc do
  # all RSpec configuration goes in here
end

if /spork/i =~ $0 || RSpec.configuration.drb?
  require 'spork'
  Spork.prefork &spec_helper_setup
else
  spec_helper_setup.call
end

Yes, there is also Spork.using_spork? but this allows it to work for both situations without having to load the spork gem at all, unless it's needed.

Answer 4

Yes. Because you are starting up and requiring spork in your code, it must be there. One option to manage that for you is Foreman another option is to use Guard with guard-spork