rspec users - Jan 2009 - rpsec-rails overwriting RAILS_ENV?

Hi folks,

We have a "features" environment for Rails, where we run the Cucumber
stuff. This lets us run specs and features in different databases,  
which can be handy.

I think I''ve found that rspec-rails 1.1.12 is doing something nasty to
the RAILS_ENV constant to force it to == "test"

Line 1 of vendor/gems/rspec-rails-1.1.12/lib/spec/rails.rb:

     silence_warnings { RAILS_ENV = "test" }

It seem like when I require this gem (which we use in the features  
env) it''s clobbering my environment setting.

I''ve noticed this problem running a rake task:

     rake db:create RAILS_ENV=features

Where RAILS_ENV was changing back to "test" before the rake task ran!
and it''s definitely happening in spec/rails.

What was the intention behind making it so forceful? Would it be OK to  
make it do something more like the following:

     RAILS_ENV ||= "test"

Shouldn''t we be leaving it up to rails to set this constant anyway?

cheers,
Matt

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

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 2:58 AM, Matt Wynne <matt at mattwynne.net>
wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> We have a "features" environment for Rails, where we run the
Cucumber stuff.
> This lets us run specs and features in different databases, which can be
> handy.
>
> I think I''ve found that rspec-rails 1.1.12 is doing something
nasty to the
> RAILS_ENV constant to force it to == "test"
>
> Line 1 of vendor/gems/rspec-rails-1.1.12/lib/spec/rails.rb:
>
>    silence_warnings { RAILS_ENV = "test" }
>
> It seem like when I require this gem (which we use in the features env)
it''s
> clobbering my environment setting.
Change require ''spec'' to require
''spec/expectations'' and you''ll be ok.
>
> I''ve noticed this problem running a rake task:
>
>    rake db:create RAILS_ENV=features
>
> Where RAILS_ENV was changing back to "test" before the rake task
ran! and
> it''s definitely happening in spec/rails.
>
> What was the intention behind making it so forceful?
That was 2 years ago - I don''t remember the motivation.
> Would it be OK to make
> it do something more like the following:
>
>    RAILS_ENV ||= "test"
>
> Shouldn''t we be leaving it up to rails to set this constant
anyway?
As long as it works, that''s fine :) Please enter a lighthouse ticket
for this.

Thanks,
David
>
> cheers,
> Matt
>
> Matt Wynne
> http://blog.mattwynne.net
> http://www.songkick.com