RSpec Pollutes Environment

[workmaster2n]

I define a constants file at lib/constants.rb

module Constants
  NAME='hi'
end

I then create a service which uses this constant app/services/test_service.rb

class TestService
  include Constants
  def do
    NAME
  end
end

I then write a spec for this service spec/services/test_service_spec.rb

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe TestService do
  it 'can be run' do
    expect(TestService.new.do).to eq('hi')
  end
end

If I run rspec at this time, this fails as expected because I am missing a require directive for lib/constants.rb: uninitialized constant TestService::Constants (NameError)

I then add a model (Person app/models/person.rb) and require the constants file.

require 'constants'

class Person < ActiveRecord::Base
end

I then write a spec for Person spec/models/person_spec.rb

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe Person, type: :model do
  pending "add some examples to (or delete) #{__FILE__}"
end

Running rspec passes (false positive). Running rspec spec/services does not pass (expected behavior).

It appears that RSpec is loading the file lib/constants.rb into memory when it runs person_spec.rb but not releasing that reference when it goes to run the next spec. This is an issue because my services fail in production when I do not preload the entire rails app.

Rails: 4.2.2
RSpec-rails: 3.3.3

Sample project here: https://github.com/workmaster2n/rspec_environment_issue

bundle
bundle exec rake db:setup
bundle exec rspec spec/services
bundle exec rspec spec/models/ spec/services/

[cupakromer]

Thanks for all the detailed information 💙

As surprising as this is, it is expected behavior. RSpec currently does not run each spec in a new process or thread. It runs all specs in a single process/thread. Ruby semantics are load files on require. It doesn't unload anything. This is the same behavior you'd see if your ran your Rails app.

I believe you are looking for the feature under discussion here: rspec/rspec-core#1254

[JonRowe]

If this is seriously something you would like to test, you can look at how we use in_sub_process in rspec-core to isolate things like this, and then wrap all of your tests in that, but it's beyond the scope of rspec to do this for you.