rspec users - Jan 2009 - [Rails, RSpec] The config.gem rake task chicken and egg thing

Sorry folks, because I know this has been asked before but I don''t  
remember anyone giving enough detail for me to sort this out the way I  
want to.

How do I change my rake tasks to silently fail if they can''t require  
rspec?

I can do this:

   begin
     require ''spec/rake/spectask''

     ... the whole Rake task ...

   rescue LoadError
     puts "Unable to load RSpec - do you need to install the gem?"
   end


... but that seems insane to have to indent all the code inside that  
big begin / rescue block. I''m sure there''s a way to exit the
script
without causing the whole rake loading chain to fail, but what is it?  
I tried ''exit 0'' but that seems to exit the whole process.

So I guess this is more a Ruby question than an RSpec question really,  
but I''m sure a good answer will help a few other people out too.


Matt Wynne
http://blog.mattwynne.net
http://www.songkick.com

Matt Wynne wrote:
> Sorry folks, because I know this has been asked before but I don''t
> remember anyone giving enough detail for me to sort this out the way I 
> want to.
>
> How do I change my rake tasks to silently fail if they can''t
require
> rspec?
>
> I can do this:
>
>   begin
>     require ''spec/rake/spectask''
>
>     ... the whole Rake task ...
>
>   rescue LoadError
>     puts "Unable to load RSpec - do you need to install the gem?"
>   end
>
>
> ... but that seems insane to have to indent all the code inside that 
> big begin / rescue block. I''m sure there''s a way to exit
the script
> without causing the whole rake loading chain to fail, but what is it? 
> I tried ''exit 0'' but that seems to exit the whole
process.
>
> So I guess this is more a Ruby question than an RSpec question really, 
> but I''m sure a good answer will help a few other people out too.
>
I suppose you could override describe:

  begin
    require ''spec/rake/spectask''
  rescue LoadError
    Kernel.warn "Unable to load RSpec - do you need to install the
gem?"

    class << self
      def describe(*args)
        # do nothing
      end
    end
  end


Scott