Overriding subject and using super in a nested example group fails

[myronmarston]

Given that I have RSpec 1.3.0 and 2.0.0.beta.17 installed
And this code is in rspec_example.rb:

require 'rubygems'

if ENV['RSPEC_VERSION'] == '2'
  require 'rspec'
elsif ENV['RSPEC_VERSION'] == '1'
  require 'spec'
  require 'spec/autorun'
end

describe Array do
  subject { [1, 'a'] }

  its(:last) { should == 'a' }

  describe '.first' do
    def subject; super.first; end

    its(:next) { should == 2 }
  end
end

When I run it with RSPEC_VERSION=1 ruby rspec_example.rb
Then I see:

..

Finished in 0.002495 seconds

2 examples, 0 failures

When I run it with RSPEC_VERSION=2 ruby rspec_example.rb
Then I see:

.F

Finished in 0.00171 seconds
2 examples, 1 failure

1) Array .first next
    Failure/Error: Unable to find matching line from backtrace
    undefined method `next' for [1, "a"]:Array
    # rspec_example.rb:16:in `subject'
    # rspec_example.rb:18
    # rspec_example.rb:10

Yes, this is a super contrived example. If you're interested in a real world example, see these specs.

This may not have been documented behavior of rspec 1.x, but it intuitively made sense to me--I understood subject { [1, 'a'] } to create a helper method called subject that returns the given array, and the nested example is a subclass, so I could override subject and super to the original definition.

I know I can use its('first.next') { should == 2 } now in rspec 2, but this seems like a backwards incompatibility with rspec 1.3 that should be either fixed or documented.

[dchelimsky]

Restore original implementation of its(attribute) from rspec-1.

• original implementation by Stephen Touset
• Closed by 3025753.

[myronmarston]

Thanks, David. I'm continually impressed at how quickly you address issues!

[dchelimsky]

Don't be too impressed. Or rather, don't set future expectations too high :) I'm just trying to get rspec-2 ready for a production release right now, so this and the book get primary focus these days.