Ruby 1.9.1 with rspec "can't modify frozen object"

Question

I just updated to Ruby 1.9.1 and nearly all my rspec are broken giving me a "can't modify frozen object". Even the Rspec sample code from a generate rspec_controller fails.

RuntimeError in 'DownloadsController should use DownloadsController'
can't modify frozen object                                                                                                                                                          
/usr/local/lib/ruby19/1.9.1/timeout.rb:44:in `timeout'


Generated by the following code: 

it "should use DownloadsController" do
  controller.should be_an_instance_of(DownloadsController)
end

Can anyone help ?

Answer 1

I think this thread is helpful.

Answer 2

Try opening /usr/local/lib/ruby19/1.9.1/timeout.rb and replace line 44 with the following:

begin
  return yield(sec) if sec == nil or sec.zero?
rescue => e
  puts e.backtrace.join("\n")
  raise e
end

Though this seems odd, in some cases I've found that this gives me more detailed information on the actual source of the problem. If you still don't know how to fix the problem, paste your results here and maybe it will help us track down the issue.

Answer 3

xto, any success with the problem?

Answer 4

Are you use you aren't trying to stub something that is nil.

In 1.8 nil wasn't frozen. It is however frozen in ruby 1.9.

Answer 5

@shaner was the correct answer for me. it was hiding a nil reference error behind this "can't modify frozen object". it was extra confusing for me b/c some of my tests expect an object to be frozen (deleted from ActiveRecord), so i initially thought it was that. unfortunately i don't have enough reputation yet to vote up his answer.