VCR

Record your test suite's HTTP interactions and replay them during future test runs for fast, deterministic, accurate tests.

Installation

gem install vcr

You'll also need either FakeWeb or WebMock:

gem install fakeweb

or

gem install webmock

Synopsis

require 'test/unit'
require 'vcr'

VCR.config do |c|
  c.cassette_library_dir = 'fixtures/vcr_cassettes'
  c.http_stubbing_library = :fakeweb # or :webmock
end

class VCRTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
  def test_example_dot_com
    VCR.use_cassette('synopsis', :record => :new_episodes) do
      response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse('http://example.com/'))
      assert_match /You have reached this web page by typing.*example\.com/, response.body
    end
  end
end

Run this test once, and VCR will record the http request to fixtures/vcr_cassettes/synopsis.yml. Run it again, and VCR will replay the response from example.com when the http request is made. This test is now fast (no real HTTP requests are made anymore), deterministic (the test will continue to pass, even if you are offline, or example.com goes down for maintenance) and accurate (the response from example.com will contain the same headers and body you get from a real request).

Features

Automatically records and replays your HTTP interactions with minimal setup/configuration code.
Supports multiple HTTP stubbing libraries. Currently FakeWeb and WebMock are supported, and the adapter interface is easy to implement for any future libraries.
Supports multiple HTTP libraries: Net::HTTP (all HTTP stubbing libraries), Patron (WebMock only), HTTPClient (WebMock only) and em-http-request (WebMock only).
Request matching is configurable based on HTTP method, URI, host, body and headers.
The same request can receive different responses in different tests--just use different cassettes.
The recorded requests and responses are stored on disk as YAML and can easily be inspected and edited.
Dynamic responses are supported using ERB.
Disables all HTTP requests that you don't explicitly allow.
Simple cucumber integration is provided using tags.
Known to work well with many popular ruby libraries including RSpec, Cucumber, Test::Unit, Capybara, Mechanize and Rest-Client.
Extensively tested on 5 different ruby interpretters.

Development

Source hosted on GitHub.
Direct questions and discussions to the mailing list.
Report issues on GitHub Issues.
Pull requests are very welcome! Please include spec and/or feature coverage for every patch, and create a topic branch for every separate change you make.

Cassettes

Cassettes are the medium to which VCR records HTTP interactions, and the medium from which it replays them. While a cassette is in use, new HTTP requests (or "new episodes", as VCR calls them) either get recorded, or an error will be raised, depending on the cassette's :record mode (see below). When you use a cassette that contains previously recorded HTTP interactions, it registers them with the http stubbing library of your choice (fakeweb or webmock) so that HTTP requests get the recorded response. Between test runs, cassettes are stored on disk as YAML files in your configured cassette library directory.

Each cassette can be configured with a couple options:

:record: Specifies a record mode for this cassette.
:erb: Used for dynamic cassettes (see below for more details).
:match_requests_on: An array of request attributes to match on (see below for more details).

Record modes

VCR supports 3 record modes. You can set a default record mode in your configuration (see below) and a per-cassette record mode when inserting a cassette. The record modes are:

:new_episodes: Previously recorded HTTP interactions will be replayed. New HTTP interactions will be recorded.
:all: Previously recorded HTTP interactions will be ignored. All HTTP interactions will be recorded.
:none: Previously recorded HTTP interactions will be replayed. New HTTP interactions will result in an error.

Request Matching

In order to properly replay previously recorded requests, VCR must match new HTTP requests to a previously recorded one. By default, it matches on HTTP method and URI, since that is usually deterministic and fully identifies the resource and action for typical RESTful APIs. In some cases (such as SOAP webservices) this may not work so well, and VCR allows you to customize how requests are matched.

Cassettes take a :match_requests_on option that expects an array of request attributes to match on. Supported attributes are:

:method: The HTTP method (i.e. GET, POST, PUT or DELETE) of the request.
:uri: The full URI of the request.
:host: The host of the URI. You can use this (alone, or in combination with :path) as an alternative to :uri to cause VCR to match using a regex that matches the host.
:path: The path of the URI. You can use this (alone, or in combination with :host) as an alternative to :uri to cause VCR to match using a regex that matches the path.
:body: The body of the request.
:headers: The request headers.

By default, VCR uses a :match_requests_on option like:

:match_requests_on => [:uri, :method]

If you want to match on another attribute, just add it to the array:

:match_requests_on => [:uri, :method, :body]

Note that FakeWeb cannot match on :body or :headers. In general, it is recommended that you configure your cassettes to match on the most specific set of attributes that is deterministic.

Configuration

require 'vcr'

VCR.config do |c|
  c.cassette_library_dir     = 'fixtures/cassette_library'
  c.http_stubbing_library    = :fakeweb
  c.ignore_localhost         = true
  c.default_cassette_options = { :record => :none }
end

This can go pretty much wherever, as long as this code is run before your tests, specs or scenarios. I tend to put it in spec/support/vcr.rb, test/support/vcr.rb or features/support/vcr.rb. You can set the following configuration options:

cassette_library_dir: VCR will save the cassette YAML files to this directory. If you are using Rails 3 and ActiveRecord YAML fixtures, you will probably want to avoid putting VCR cassettes in a sub-directory of RAILS_ROOT/test/fixtures. Rails will assume your cassette YAML files are ActiveRecord fixtures and raise an error when the content doesn't conform to its expectations.
http_stubbing_library: Which http stubbing library to use. Currently :fakeweb and :webmock are supported. This is currently optional--VCR will try to guess based on the presence or absence of the FakeWeb or WebMock constants, but this is mostly done to assist users upgrading from VCR 0.3.1, which only worked with fakeweb and didn't have this option. I recommend you explicitly configure this.
ignore_localhost: Defaults to false. Setting it true does the following:
- Localhost requests will proceed as normal. The "Real HTTP connections are disabled" error will not occur.
- Localhost requests will not be recorded.
- Previously recorded localhost requests will not be replayed.
default_cassette_options: The default options for your cassettes. These will be overridden by any options you set on each individual cassette.

Usage with your favorite ruby test/spec framework

VCR can easily be used with any ruby test or spec framework. Usually, you'll want to use VCR.use_cassette:

VCR.use_cassette('geocoding/Seattle, WA', :record => :new_episodes) do
  # do something that makes an HTTP request
end

Alternately, you can insert and eject a cassette with individual method calls from setup/before and teardown/after:

describe "Some object that makes an HTTP request" do
  before(:each) do
    VCR.insert_cassette('geocoding/Seattle, WA', :record => :new_episodes)
  end

  it "does something that makes an HTTP request"

  it "does something else that makes an HTTP request"

  after(:each) do
    VCR.eject_cassette
  end
end

If you're using RSpec 2, you can use the new around hook:

describe "Some object that makes an HTTP request" do
  around(:each) do |example|
    VCR.use_cassette('geocoding/Seattle, WA', :record => :new_episodes, &example)
  end

  it "does something that makes an HTTP request"

  it "does something else that makes an HTTP request"
end

Usage with Cucumber

VCR provides additional support for cucumber. You can of course use VCR.use_cassette within a step definition, and that's the recommended way for any of your custom step definitions. But many times I find myself using generic step definitions provided by another library (such as the webrat/capybara web steps generated by cucumber-rails), and you don't want to modify these. VCR provides cucumber tagging support to help in these cases.

First, tag your scenario with something descriptive:

@facebook_http_request
Scenario: Sign up with facebook connect

Then let VCR know about this tag, in features/support/vcr.rb (or some similar support file):

VCR.cucumber_tags do |t|
  t.tags '@facebook_http_request', '@twitter_status_update', :record => :none
  t.tags '@another_scenario_tag'
end

For each of the tags you specify in your cucumber_tags block, VCR will set up an appropriate After hook to use a cassette for the entire scenario. The tag (minus the '@') will be used as the cassette name, and it'll go in the cucumber_tags subdirectory of the configured cassette library directory.

If the last argument to #tags is a hash, VCR will use it as the options for the named cassettes.

Usage with Capybara

When you use any of the javascript-enabled drivers (selenium, celerity, culerity) with capybara, it'll need to ping the app running on localhost. Set the ignore_localhost option to true to allow this.

Cassette Customization

Cassettes are stored as simple plain text YAML files and can easily be edited to suit your needs. One common need is for a particular request to be stubbed using a regex rather than the raw URL. This is handy for URLs that contain non-deterministic portions (such as timestamps)--since the URL will be a bit different each time, the URL from the recorded request will not match the URL for future requests. You can simply change the URL to the YAML of the appropriate regex.

Figure out the yaml in irb:

>> require 'yaml'
=> true
>> puts /example\.com\/\d+/.to_yaml
--- !ruby/regexp /example\.com\/\d+/

Edit your cassette file:

request: !ruby/struct:VCR::Request 
  method: :get
  uri: !ruby/regexp /example\.com\/\d+/
  body: 
  headers:

Note that it may be simpler (and better!) to use the :match_requests_on cassette option with :host and/or :path, as that gives you a a URL regex without the need to manually edit the cassette file. If you do change a url to a regex in a cassette file, VCR will use it, regardless of the :match_requests_on setting.

Dynamic Cassettes

VCR's default recording and replaying is static. The exact response that is initially recorded will be replayed for all future requests. Usually this is fine, but in some cases you need something more dynamic. You can use ERB for this.

Enable ERB evaluation of a cassette using the :erb option:

VCR.use_cassette('user-subscription', :erb => true) do
  # do something that makes an HTTP request
end

You can use variables in your cassette's ERB by passing a hash:

VCR.use_cassette('user-subscription', :erb => { :user => User.last }) do
  # do something that makes an HTTP request
end

In your cassette:

request: !ruby/struct:VCR::Request 
  method: :get
  uri: http://some-domain.com:80/users/<%= user.id %>
  body: 
  headers: 
  ...
response: !ruby/struct:VCR::Response 
  ...
  body: Hello, <%= user.name %>!

FakeWeb or WebMock?

VCR works fine with either FakeWeb or WebMock. Overall, WebMock has more features, and you'll need to use WebMock if you want to use VCR with an HTTP library besides Net::HTTP. However, FakeWeb is currently about three times faster than WebMock, so you may want to stick with FakeWeb if you don't need WebMock's additional features. You can see the benchmarks for more details.

Note that FakeWeb also currently has a bug that prevents it from properly dealing with multiple values for the same response header. See this FakeWeb issue for more info.

You should not need to directly interact with either FakeWeb or WebMock. VCR will take care of disallowing http connections when no cassette is inserted, and it will clean up all stubs/registrations when a cassette is ejected. If you ever decide to switch HTTP stubbing libraries, you'll just have to update the VCR config setting.

Suggested Workflow

First, configure VCR as I have above. I like setting the default record mode to :none so that no new HTTP requests are made without me explicitly allowing it, but if you may prefer to set it to :new_episodes.

When an HTTP request is made, you'll get an error such as:

Real HTTP connections are disabled. Unregistered request: get http://example.com

Find the place that is making the HTTP request (the backtrace should help here). If you've already recorded this HTTP request to a cassette from a different test, you can simply re-use the cassette. Use VCR.use_cassette, as shown above. You may also want to refactor this into a helper method that sets up the VCR cassette and does whatever makes the HTTP request:

def set_user_address(user, address, city, state)
  VCR.use_cassette("geocoding/#{address}, #{city}, #{state}", :record => :new_episodes) do
    user.address.update_attributes!(:address => address, :city => city, :state => state)
  end
end

In this case, I've used a dynamic cassette name based on the address being geocoded. That way, each separate address gets a different cassette, and tests that set the same user address will reuse the same cassette. I've also set the record mode to :new_episodes so that VCR will automatically record geocoding requests for a new address to a new cassette, without me having to change any code.

If the HTTP request that triggered the error is new, you'll have to record it for the first time. Simply use VCR.use_cassette with the record mode set to :new_episodes or :all. Run the test again, and VCR will record the HTTP interaction. I usually remove the record mode at this point so that it uses the default of :none in the future. Future test runs will get the recorded response, and if your code changes so that it is making a new HTTP request, you'll be notified by an error as shown above.

VCR is designed to be used very granularly. Rather than inserting a global cassette, I recommend you wrap individual blocks of code in VCR.use_cassette and record logically grouped sets of requests.

Ruby Interpreter Compatibility

VCR has been tested on the following ruby interpreters:

MRI 1.8.6-p399
MRI 1.8.7-p302
MRI 1.9.1-p378
MRI 1.9.2
JRuby 1.5.1

Notes, etc.

The objects serialized to the cassette YAML files changed with the 0.4 release. Cassettes recorded with older versions of VCR will not work with VCR 0.4.0 and later. However, VCR provides a rake task to migrate your old cassettes to the new format--see the changelog for more info.
The cassette name determines the name of the library file for the given cassette. Strings or symbols are fine, and you can include any characters, but spaces and invalid file name characters will be removed before the cassette reads or writes to its library file.
You can use a directory separator (i.e. '/') in your cassette names to cause it to use a subdirectory of the cassette library directory. The cucumber tagging support uses this.
VCR maintains a simple stack of cassettes. This allows you to nest them as deeply as you want. This is particularly useful when you have a cucumber step definition that uses a cassette, and you also want to use a cassette for the entire scenario using the tagging support.
If you find VCR useful, please recommend me on working with rails.

Thanks

Aslak Hellesøy for Cucumber.
Bartosz Blimke for WebMock.
Chris Kampmeier for FakeWeb.
Chris Young for NetRecorder, the inspiration for VCR.

Thanks also to the following people who have contributed patches or helpful suggestions:

Aaron Brethorst
Bartosz Blimke
Ben Hutton
Eric Allam

Similar Libraries

If VCR doesn't meet your needs, please open an issue and let me know how VCR could be improved. You may also want to try one of these similar libraries:

Stale Fish
NetRecorder
Ephemeral Response

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README.md

README.md

VCR

Installation

Synopsis

Features

Development

Cassettes

Record modes

Request Matching

Configuration

Usage with your favorite ruby test/spec framework

Usage with Cucumber

Usage with Capybara

Cassette Customization

Dynamic Cassettes

FakeWeb or WebMock?

Suggested Workflow

Ruby Interpreter Compatibility

Notes, etc.

Thanks

Similar Libraries

Copyright

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

VCR

Installation

Synopsis

Features

Development

Cassettes

Record modes

Request Matching

Configuration

Usage with your favorite ruby test/spec framework

Usage with Cucumber

Usage with Capybara

Cassette Customization

Dynamic Cassettes

FakeWeb or WebMock?

Suggested Workflow

Ruby Interpreter Compatibility

Notes, etc.

Thanks

Similar Libraries

Copyright