RSpec 2.99 and 3.0 RC1 have been released!

Myron Marston

The RSpec team has released 3.0.0.rc1 and 2.99.0.rc1! Barring a new major issue being reported, this will be the last prerelease, and we’ll release 2.99.0 and 3.0.0 final in 2 weeks.

If you’re upgrading a project from 2.x, check out the upgrade instructions.

If you’re curious about what’s new in RSpec 3, check back in a few days – I’ll be posting full list of notable changes in RSpec 3 soon.

Thanks to all the contributors who helped make this release happen!

Release Notes

rspec-core 2.99.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Enhancements:

• Add --deprecation-out CLI option which directs deprecation warnings to the named file. (Myron Marston)
• Backport support for skip in metadata to skip execution of an example. (Xavier Shay, #1472)
• Add Pathname support for setting all output streams. (Aaron Kromer)
• Add test_unit and minitest expectation frameworks. (Aaron Kromer)

Deprecations:

• Deprecate RSpec::Core::Pending::PendingDeclaredInExample, use SkipDeclaredInExample instead. (Xavier Shay)
• Issue a deprecation when described_class is accessed from within a nested describe <SomeClass> example group, since described_class will return the innermost described class in RSpec 3 rather than the outermost described class, as it behaved in RSpec 2. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::FilterManager::DEFAULT_EXCLUSIONS, RSpec::Core::FilterManager::STANDALONE_FILTERS and use of #empty_without_conditional_filters? on those filters. (Sergey Pchelincev)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::Example#options in favor of RSpec::Core::Example#metadata. (Myron Marston)
• Issue warning when passing a symbol or hash to describe or context as the first argument. In RSpec 2.x this would be treated as metadata but in RSpec 3 it’ll be treated as the described object. To continue having it treated as metadata, pass a description before the symbol or hash. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::BaseTextFormatter::VT100_COLORS and RSpec::Core::BaseTextFormatter::VT100_COLOR_CODES in favour of RSpec::Core::BaseTextFormatter::ConsoleCodes::VT100_CODES and RSpec::Core::BaseTextFormatter::ConsoleCodes::VT100_CODE_VALUES. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.display_name in favor of RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.description. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.describes in favor of RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.described_class. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.alias_example_to in favor of RSpec::Core::Configuration#alias_example_to. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.alias_it_behaves_like_to in favor of RSpec::Core::Configuration#alias_it_behaves_like_to. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.focused in favor of RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.focus. (Myron Marston)
• Add deprecation warning for config.filter_run :focused since example aliases fit and focus will no longer include :focused metadata but will continue to include :focus. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate filtering by :line_number (e.g. --line-number from the CLI). Use location filtering instead. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate --default_path as an alternative to --default-path. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::Configuration#warnings in favor of RSpec::Core::Configuration#warnings?. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate share_examples_for in favor of shared_examples_for or just shared_examples. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Core::CommandLine in favor of RSpec::Core::Runner. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate #color_enabled, #color_enabled= and #color? in favour of #color, #color= and #color_enabled? output. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate #filename_pattern in favour of #pattern. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate #backtrace_cleaner in favour of #backtrace_formatter. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate mutating RSpec::Configuration#formatters. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate stdlib as an available expectation framework in favour of test_unit and minitest. (Aaron Kromer)

Bug Fixes:

• Issue a warning when you set config.deprecation_stream too late for it to take effect because the reporter has already been setup. (Myron Marston)
• skip with a block should not execute the block. (Xavier Shay)

rspec-core 3.0.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Breaking Changes for 3.0.0:

• Change described_class so that in a nested group like describe MyClass, it returns MyClass rather than the outer group’s described class. (Myron Marston)
• Refactor filter manager so that it no longer subclasses Hash and has a tighter, more domain-specific interface. (Sergey Pchelincev)
• Remove legacy colours definitions from BaseTextFormatter. (Jon Rowe)
• Remove console color definitions from BaseTextFormatter. (Jon Rowe)
• Restructure example group metadata so that the computed keys are exposed directly off of the metadata hash rather than being on a nested :example_group subhash. In addition, the parent example group metadata is now available as [:parent_example_group] rather than [:example_group][:example_group]. Deprecated access via the old key structure is still provided. (Myron Marston)
• Remove :describes metadata key. It duplicates :described_class for no good reason. Deprecated access via :describes is still provided. (Myron Marston)
• Rename :example_group_block metadata key to :block. (Myron Marston)
• Remove deprecated RSpec::Core::Example#options. (Myron Marston)
• Move BaseTextFormatter#colorize_summary to SummaryNotification#colorize_with (Jon Rowe).
• describe some_hash treated some_hash as metadata in RSpec 2.x but will treat it as the described object in RSpec 3.0. Metadata must always come after the description args. (Myron Marston)
• Remove deprecated display_name alias of ExampleGroup.description. (Myron Marston)
• Remove deprecated describes alias of ExampleGroup.described_class. (Myron Marston)
• Remove deprecated RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.alias_it_behaves_like_to. Use RSpec::Core::Configuration#alias_it_behaves_like_to instead. (Myron Marston)
• Remove deprecated RSpec::Core::ExampleGroup.alias_example_to. Use RSpec::Core::Configuration#alias_example_to instead. (Myron Marston)
• Removed focused example alias and change example/group aliases fit, focus, fcontext and fdescribe to no longer include :focused => true metadata. They only contain :focus => true metadata now. This means that you will need to filter them with filter_run :focus, not filter_run :focused. (Myron Marston)
• Remove --line-number filtering. It’s semantically dubious since it’s a global filter (potentially applied to multiple files) but there’s no meaningful connection between the same line number in multiple files. Instead use the rspec path/to/spec.rb:23:46 form, which is terser and makes more sense as it is scoped to a file. (Myron Marston)
• Remove --default_path as an alias for --default-path. (Jon Rowe)
• Remove deprecated share_examples_for. There’s still shared_examples and shared_examples_for. (Myron Marston)
• Rename RSpec::Core::Configuration#warnings to RSpec::Core::Configuration#warnings? since it’s a boolean flag. (Myron Marston)
• RSpec’s global state is no longer reset after a spec run. This gives more flexibility to alternate runners to decide when and if they want the state reset. Alternate runners are now responsible for calling this (or doing a similar reset) if they are going to run the spec suite multiple times in the same process. (Sam Phippen)
• Merge RSpec::Core::CommandLine (never formally declared public) into RSpec::Core::Runner. (Myron Marston)
• Remove color_enabled as an alias of color. (Jon Rowe)
• Remove backtrace_cleaner as an alias of backtrace_formatter. (Jon Rowe)
• Remove filename_pattern as an alias of pattern. (Jon Rowe)
• Extract support for legacy formatters to rspec-legacy_formatters. (Jon Rowe)
• RSpec::Configuration#formatters now returns a dup to prevent mutation. (Jon Rowe)
• Replace stdlib as an available expectation framework with test_unit and minitest. (Aaron Kromer)
• Remove backtrace formatting helpers from BaseTextFormatter. (Jon Rowe)
• Extract profiler support to ProfileFormatter and ProfileNotification. Formatters should implement dump_profile if they wish to respond to --profile. (Jon Rowe)
• Extract remaining formatter state to reporter and notifications. Introduce ExamplesNotification to share information about examples that was previously held in BaseFormatter. (Jon Rowe)

Enhancements:

• Add config.default_formatter attribute, which can be used to set a formatter which will only be used if no other formatter is set (e.g. via --formatter). (Myron Marston)
• Support legacy colour definitions in LegacyFormatterAdaptor. (Jon Rowe)
• Migrate execution_result (exposed by metadata) from a hash to a first-class object with appropriate attributes. status is now stored and returned as a symbol rather than a string. It retains deprecated hash behavior for backwards compatibility. (Myron Marston)
• Provide console code helper for formatters. (Jon Rowe)
• Use raw ruby hashes for the metadata hashes rather than a subclass of a hash. Computed metadata entries are now computed in advance rather than being done lazily on first access. (Myron Marston)
• Add :block metadata entry to the example metadata, bringing parity with :block in the example group metadata. (Myron Marston)
• Add fspecify and fexample as aliases of specify and example with :focus => true metadata for parity with fit. (Myron Marston)
• Add legacy support for colorize_summary. (Jon Rowe)
• Restructure runner so it can be more easily customized in a subclass for an alternate runner. (Ben Hoskings)
• Document RSpec::Core::ConfigurationOptions as an officially supported public API. (Myron Marston)
• Add --deprecation-out CLI option which directs deprecation warnings to the named file. (Myron Marston)
• Minitest 5 compatability for expect_with :stdlib (now available as expect_with :minitest). (Xavier Shay)
• Reporter now notifies formatters of the load time of RSpec and your specs via StartNotification and SummaryNotification. (Jon Rowe)
• Add disable_monkey_patching! config option that disables all monkey patching from whatever pieces of RSpec you use. (Alexey Fedorov)
• Add Pathname support for setting all output streams. (Aaron Kromer)
• Add config.define_derived_metadata, which can be used to apply additional metadata to all groups or examples that match a given filter. (Myron Marston)
• Provide formatted and colorized backtraces via FailedExampleNotification and send PendingExampleFixedNotifications when the error is due to a passing spec you expect to fail. (Jon Rowe)
• Add dump_profile to formatter API to allow formatters to implement support for --profile. (Jon Rowe)
• Allow colourising text via ConsoleCodes with RSpec ‘states’ (e.g. :success, :failure) rather than direct colour codes. (Jon Rowe)
• Expose fully_formatted methods off the formatter notification objects that make it easy for a custom formatter to produce formatted output like rspec-core’s. (Myron Marston)

Bug Fixes:

• Fix spec_helper.rb file generated by rspec --init so that the recommended settings correctly use the documentation formatter when running one file. (Myron Marston)
• Fix ordering problem where descriptions were generated after tearing down mocks, which resulted in unexpected exceptions. (Bradley Schaefer, Aaron Kromer, Andrey Savchenko)
• Allow a symbol to be used as an implicit subject (e.g. describe :foo). (Myron Marston)
• Prevent creating an isolated context (i.e. using RSpec.describe) when already inside a context. There is no reason to do this, and it could potentially cause unexpected bugs. (Xavier Shay)
• Fix shared example group scoping so that when two shared example groups share the same name at different levels of nested contexts, the one in the nearest context is used. (Myron Marston)
• Fix --warnings option so that it enables warnings immediately so that it applies to files loaded by --require. (Myron Marston)
• Issue a warning when you set config.deprecation_stream too late for it to take effect because the reporter has already been setup. (Myron Marston)
• Add the full RSpec::Core::Example interface to the argument yielded to around hooks. (Myron Marston)
• Line number always takes precendence when running specs with filters. (Xavier Shay)
• Ensure :if and :unless metadata filters are treated as a special case and are always in-effect. (Bradley Schaefer)
• Ensure the currently running installation of RSpec is used when the rake task shells out to rspec, even if a newer version is also installed. (Postmodern)
• Using a legacy formatter as default no longer causes an infinite loop. (Xavier Shay)

rspec-expectations 2.99.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Deprecations:

• Deprecate matcher_execution_context attribute on DSL-defined custom matchers. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Matchers::Pretty#_pretty_print. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Matchers::Pretty#expected_to_sentence. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Matchers::Configuration in favor of RSpec::Expectations::Configuration. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate be_xyz predicate matcher on an object that doesn’t respond to xyz? or xyzs?. (Daniel Fone)
• Deprecate have_xyz matcher on an object that doesn’t respond to has_xyz?. (Daniel Fone)
• Deprecate have_xyz matcher on an object that has a private method has_xyz?. (Jon Rowe)
• Issue a deprecation warning when a block expectation expression is used with a matcher that doesn’t explicitly support block expectations via supports_block_expectations?. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate require 'rspec-expectations'. Use require 'rspec/expectations' instead. (Myron Marston)

rspec-expectations 3.0.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Breaking Changes for 3.0.0:

• Remove matcher_execution_context attribute from DSL-defined custom matchers. (Myron Marston)
• Remove RSpec::Matchers::Pretty#_pretty_print. (Myron Marston)
• Remove RSpec::Matchers::Pretty#expected_to_sentence. (Myron Marston)
• Rename RSpec::Matchers::Configuration constant to RSpec::Expectations::Configuration. (Myron Marston)
• Prevent have_xyz predicate matchers using private methods. (Adrian Gonzalez)
• Block matchers must now implement supports_block_expectations?. (Myron Marston)
• Stop supporting require 'rspec-expectations'. Use require 'rspec/expectations' instead. (Myron Marston)

Bug Fixes:

• Fix NoMethodError triggered by beta2 when YARD was loaded in the test environment. (Myron Marston)
• Fix be_xyz matcher to accept a do...end block. (Myron Marston)
• Fix composable matcher failure message generation logic so that it does not blow up when given $stdout or $stderr. (Myron Marston)
• Fix change matcher to work properly with IO objects. (Myron Marston)
• Fix exist matcher so that it can be used in composed matcher expressions involving objects that do not implement exist? or exists?. (Daniel Fone)
• Fix composable matcher match logic so that it clones matchers before using them in order to work properly with matchers that use internal memoization based on a given actual value. (Myron Marston)
• Fix be_xyz and has_xyz predicate matchers so that they can be used in composed matcher expressions involving objects that do not implement the predicate method. (Daniel Fone)

Enhancements:

• Document the remaining public APIs. rspec-expectations now has 100% of the public API documented and will remain that way (as new undocumented methods will fail the build). (Myron Marston)
• Improve the formatting of BigDecimal objects in eq matcher failure messages. (Daniel Fone)
• Improve the failure message for be_xyz predicate matchers so that it includes the inspect output of the receiver. (Erik Michaels-Ober, Sam Phippen)
• Add all matcher, to allow you to specify that a given matcher matches all elements in a collection: expect([1, 3, 5]).to all( be_odd ). (Adam Farhi)
• Add boolean aliases (&/|) for compound operators (and/or). (Adam Farhi)
• Give users a clear error when they wrongly use a value matcher in a block expectation expression (e.g. expect { 3 }.to eq(3)) or vice versa. (Myron Marston)

rspec-mocks 2.99.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Deprecations:

• Deprecate RSpec::Mocks::TestDouble.extend_onto. (Myron Marston)
• Deprecate RSpec::Mocks::ConstantStubber. (Jon Rowe)
• Deprecate Marshal.dump monkey-patch without opt-in. (Xavier Shay)

rspec-mocks 3.0.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Breaking Changes for 3.0.0:

• Remove RSpec::Mocks::TestDouble.extend_onto. (Myron Marston)
• Remove RSpec::Mocks::ConstantStubber. (Jon Rowe)
• Make monkey-patch of Marshal to support dumping of stubbed objects opt-in. (Xavier Shay)

Enhancements:

• Instead of crashing when cleaning up stub methods on a frozen object, it now issues a warning explaining that it’s impossible to clean up the stubs. (Justin Coyne and Sam Phippen)
• Add meaningful descriptions to anything, duck_type and instance_of argument matchers. (Jon Rowe)

Bug Fixes:

• Fix regression introduced in 3.0.0.beta2 that caused double.as_null_object.to_str to return the double rather than a string. (Myron Marston)
• Fix bug in expect(dbl).to receive_message_chain(:foo, :bar) where it was not setting an expectation for the last message in the chain. (Jonathan del Strother)
• Allow verifying partial doubles to have private methods stubbed. (Xavier Shay)
• Fix bug with allowing/expecting messages on Class objects which have had their singleton class prepended to. (Jon Rowe)
• Fix an issue with 1.8.7 not running implementation blocks on partial doubles. (Maurício Linhares)
• Prevent StackLevelTooDeep errors when stubbing an any_instance method that’s accessed in inspect by providing our own inspect output. (Jon Rowe)
• Fix bug in any_instance logic that did not allow you to mock or stub private methods if verify_partial_doubles was configured. (Oren Dobzinski)
• Include useful error message when trying to observe an unimplemented method on an any instance. (Xavier Shay)
• Fix and_call_original to work properly when multiple classes in an inheritance hierarchy have been stubbed with the same method. (Myron Marston)
• Fix any_instance so that it updates existing instances that have already been stubbed. (Myron Marston)
• Fix verified doubles so that their class name is included in failure messages. (Myron Marston)
• Fix expect_any_instance_of so that when the message is received on an individual instance that has been directly stubbed, it still satisfies the expectation. (Sam Phippen, Myron Marston)
• Explicitly disallow using any_instance to mock or stub a method that is defined on a module prepended onto the class. This triggered SystemStackError before and is very hard to support so we are not supporting it at this time. (Myron Marston)

rspec-rails 2.99.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Deprecations

• Deprecates stub_model and mock_model in favor of the rspec-activemodel-mocks gem. (Thomas Holmes)
• Issue a deprecation to instruct users to configure config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location! during the upgrade process since spec type inference is opt-in in 3.0. (Jon Rowe)
• Issue a deprecation when described_class is accessed in a controller example group that has used the controller { } macro to generate an anonymous controller class, since in 2.x, described_class would return that generated class but in 3.0 it will continue returning the class passed to describe. (Myron Marston)

rspec-rails 3.0.0.rc1

Full Changelog

Breaking Changes for 3.0.0:

• Extracts the mock_model and stub_model methods to the rspec-activemodel-mocks gem. (Thomas Holmes)
• Spec types are no longer inferred by location, they instead need to be explicitly tagged. The old behaviour is enabled by config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!, which is still supplied in the default generated spec_helper.rb. (Xavier Shay, Myron Marston)
• controller macro in controller specs no longer mutates :described_class metadata. It still overrides the subject and sets the controller, though. (Myron Marston)
• Stop depending on or requiring rspec-collection_matchers. Users who want those matchers should add the gem to their Gemfile and require it themselves. (Myron Marston)
• Removes runtime dependency on ActiveModel. (Rodrigo Rosenfeld Rosas)

Enhancements:

• Supports Rails 4.x reference attribute ids in generated scaffold for view specs. (Giovanni Cappellotto)
• Add have_http_status matcher. (Aaron Kromer)
• Add spec type metadata to generator templates. (Aaron Kromer)

Bug Fixes:

• Fix an inconsistency in the generated scaffold specs for a controller. (Andy Waite)
• Ensure config.before(:all, :type => <type>) hooks run before groups of the given type, even when the type is inferred by the file location. (Jon Rowe, Myron Marston)
• Switch to parsing params with Rack::Utils::parse_nested_query to match Rails. (Tim Watson)
• Fix incorrect namespacing of anonymous controller routes. (Aaron Kromer)