rspec woes ft. spec_helper

If you somehow are grappling with this LoadError while running rspec tests:

rspec-core-3.1.7/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:1072:in require: cannot load such file -- spec_helper (LoadError)

Hopefully this will help you out – read on amigo.

Rule numero uno of programming is to read the error message for clues, like Scooby-Doo and the gang. Looks like Rspec was trying to look for a file called spec_helper.rb DEEP inside the Rspec core library (the error was thrown @ line 1_072)!

No big deal right? I quickly Google’d spec_helper and gleaned that the file needs to be inside of your spec directory/folder. So, I did just that, manually. Nothing inside the file. I’m a genius right? Ran the tests again … but it still gave me that damn LoadError!

Just like Transformers, there’s more to spec_helper than meets the eye! Turns out, all I had to do was type this in my terminal (inside whatever directory that has the spec folder):

$ rspec --init

What it does is generate some conventional files for your project:

• .rspec
• spec/spec_helper.rb

I ran the Rspec test again and finally got it to work. Yee! If you have the files already and run that above command, the output in your terminal will be:

• exist .rspec
• exist spec/spec_helper.rb

In which case, nothing will happen and no need to worry. Hope this was helpful.