Organizing expectations in rspec

Question

Hi there,

I'm basing my question on this one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1583760/rspec-mocks-verify-expectations-in-it-should-methods and also on these guidelines: http://eggsonbread.com/2010/03/28/my-rspec-best-practices-and-tips/

So, if there should be only one expectation per "it" block, what if I'm mixing mocks expectations with value expectations?

Example:

describe Foo, "#bar" do
  before :all do
    @baz = mock(Baz)
    @foo = Foo.new(@baz)
  end
  it "should call waka on @baz" do
    @baz.should_receive(:waka)
  end
  it "should not be empty afterwards" do
    @foo.should_not be_empty
  end
  it "should not raise exceptions" do
    lambda {@foo.bar}.should_not raise_exception # potentially with side effects?
  end
  after :all do
    @foo.bar # won't work with the second expectation
  end
end

I hope the problem is clear. Does anybody has experience with organizing specs on this case? Am I doing some mistake?

Answer 1

One expectation per group is a suggestion, not a hard and fast rule. You shouldn't go crazy trying to conform to it (and in this case, I think using an after :all block is going a little crazy).

I'm also getting rid of the before :all and just using before :each - :all can occasionally lead to confusing state bugs.

describe Foo, "#bar" do
  before do
    @baz = mock(Baz)
    @foo = Foo.new(@baz)
  end

  it "should call waka on @baz" do
    @baz.should_receive(:waka)
    @foo.bar
  end

  it "should not be empty afterwards" do
    @foo.bar
    @foo.should_not be_empty
  end

  it "should not raise exceptions" do
    lambda { @foo.bar }.should_not raise_exception
  end
end

And actually, you're still only setting one expectation per group.