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Adds test/unit compatibility to Rspec.

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test/unit compatibility for RSpec 2.


rspec-unit adds support for test/unit-style assertions and test cases to RSpec 2. This is useful for piecemeal conversions of your test suite (in either direction), mixing styles, or if you simply want to use test/unit-style assertions occasionally in your specs.

Just add this to your code:

require 'rspec/unit'

and then you can write test classes like this:

class FooTest < RSpec::Unit::TestCase
  def test_foo
    assert_equal 3, Foo::major_version

Using the test_info method, you can attach metadata to the next defined test (this works much the same way Rake's desc method attaches a description string to the next defined task):

test_info :speed => 'slow', :run => 'nightly'
def test_tarantula_multipass
  # ...

You can also attach metadata to the entire class with the test_case_info method:

class BarTest < RSpec::Unit::TestCase
  test_case_info :integration => true

  # ...

Each instance of Rspec::Unit::TestCase is equivalent to an RSpec describe block, so it can also include example blocks, before and after blocks, and nested describe blocks. Test methods and example blocks can contain either assertions or should expressions. test blocks (as found in Rails 2.x) also work.

Additionally, assertions can be used inside ordinary RSpec examples.


This gem is the rough equivalent, for RSpec 2, of the test/unit compatibility that was a part of the core RSpec gem in RSpec 1. The new RSpec runner design makes it quite easy to implement this functionality as a separate gem, which seems like a better choice in many ways.

Currently, test/unit compatibility is much more limited than in RSpec 1. The goal is not to make RSpec 2 a drop-in replacement for test/unit; rather, I have three more limited goals:

  1. to allow RSpec 2 examples to easily make use of test/unit assertions in cases where those assertions are valuable, or where assertions might be the best way to express particular expectations.
  2. to make it easy for a project to switch an existing test/unit suite over to run under RSpec, as the start of a gradual, piecemeal conversion to RSpec.
  3. to demonstrate how to extend RSpec 2.

As such, there are some things that are not supported:

  • The top-level module name is different. For example, one requires rspec/unit rather than test/unit, and extends RSpec::Unit::TestCase rather than Test::Unit::TestCase.
  • TestSuite is not supported. The RSpec 2 metadata features are far more flexible than test/unit-style suites.
  • Because of the very different implementation, many test/unit extensions will not run properly.
  • All test output and summaries are in RSpec style; test/unit-compatible output is not supported.

I will certainly consider supporting those things if there is demand.

To Do

It would be nice to try using the assertion code from minitest, which is much more compact and seems less coupled than that from test/unit.


Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 Glenn Vanderburg. See LICENSE for details.

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