Getting "invalid option: --pattern" for post-3.0.2 rspec-rails gem.

[jasnow]

Getting "invalid option: --pattern" for 3.0.3+ rspec-rails gem.

1. Created new branch "pattern-invalid-option" under https://github.com/jasnow/tasks repo:
   https://github.com/jasnow/tasks/tree/pattern-invalid-option
   My master branch is using rspec-rails 3.0.2 currently.
2. Removed hard coded gem version 3.0.2 for rspec-rails in Gemfile therefore using 3.1.0.
3. Ran "bundle" then "rake" and got this (minor edits):

    /home/dell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.1.2/bin/ruby -I/home/dell/.rvm/gems/
    ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-core-3.1.2/lib:/home/dell/.rvm/gems/
    ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-support-3.1.0/lib /home/dell/.rvm/
    gems/ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-core-3.1.2/exe/rspec
     --pattern spec/\*\*\{,/\*/\*\*\}/\*_spec.rb
    ......

    Finished in 0.39711 seconds (files took 3.72 seconds to load)

    6 examples, 0 failures

    Randomized with seed 9180

    **invalid option: --pattern**

    minitest options:
        -h, --help                       Display this help.
        -s, --seed SEED                  Sets random seed
        -v, --verbose                    Verbose. Show progress processing files.
        -n, --name PATTERN               Filter run on /pattern/ or string.

    Known extensions: pride
        -p, --pride                      Pride. Show your testing pride!

    /home/dell/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.1.2/bin/ruby -I/home/dell/.rvm/gems/
    ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-core-3.1.2/lib:/home/dell/.rvm/gems/
    ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-support-3.1.0/lib /home/dell/.rvm/
    gems/ruby-2.1.2@tasks/gems/rspec-core-3.1.2/exe/rspec
    --pattern spec/\*\*\{,/\*/\*\*\}/\*_spec.rb failed

1. PS: If this is not related to rspec-rails gem, I am very willing to move it to a new issue list (another gem).

[jasnow]

Also see this message when I upgrade Cucumber/Ruby to 2.0.0.beta.3.

[myronmarston]

The error message is coming from minitest. While you can mix and match parts of RSpec (core, expectations, mocks) with parts of minitest (the runner, the assertions module, the built-in mocking library), rspec-core is not designed to work with the minitest runner loaded in the same process. As you can see from the error message above the minitest runner isn't tolerant of many of the CLI options that RSpec supports and will issue errors like you got.

The solution is not load the minitest runner. My suggestion is to open the minitest code and add a puts caller.join("\n") to see what is loading minitest,and then stop it from being loaded.

[jasnow]

To document my two solutions for future seekers of the truth:

• Added these 2 lines to features/support/env.rb file to fix https://github.com/atlrug/atlrug4.
  Found this in cucumber/multi_test@ac84d4a
  Now Cucumber 2.0.0.beta.3 runs this test suite without above error message.
  • require "multi_test"
  • MultiTest.disable_autorun
• Removed these two lines from spec/spec_helper.rb in https://github.com/jasnow/tasks
  since they were not needed in app.
  • gem "minitest"
  • require 'minitest/autorun'

[batter]

I'm seeing this same thing while not using minitest... some RSpec tests, and it was working fine with RSpec 2, but since upgrading (to RSpec 3) when I run rake spec, all the tests pass but I get a similar warning to what @jasnow was seeing (note: this only happens on Ruby 1.8.7; also I am using rspec-rails to do some of the testing since the gem integrates with rails):

invalid option: --pattern
Test::Unit automatic runner.
Usage: /Users/batkins/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p374@paper_trail/gems/rspec-core-3.1.6/exe/rspec [options] [-- untouched arguments]

    -r, --runner=RUNNER              Use the given RUNNER.
                                     (c[onsole], f[ox], g[tk], g[tk]2, t[k])
    -n, --name=NAME                  Runs tests matching NAME.
                                     (patterns may be used).
    -t, --testcase=TESTCASE          Runs tests in TestCases matching TESTCASE.
                                     (patterns may be used).
    -I, --load-path=DIR[:DIR...]     Appends directory list to $LOAD_PATH.
    -v, --verbose=[LEVEL]            Set the output level (default is verbose).
                                     (s[ilent], p[rogress], n[ormal], v[erbose])
        --                           Stop processing options so that the
                                     remaining options will be passed to the
                                     test.
    -h, --help                       Display this help.

Deprecated options:
        --console                    Console runner (use --runner).
        --gtk                        GTK runner (use --runner).
        --fox                        Fox runner (use --runner).

/Users/batkins/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.8.7-p374/bin/ruby -I/Users/batkins/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p374@paper_trail/gems/rspec-core-3.1.6/lib:/Users/batkins/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p374@paper_trail/gems/rspec-support-3.1.2/lib /Users/batkins/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.8.7-p374@paper_trail/gems/rspec-core-3.1.6/exe/rspec --pattern spec/\*\*\{,/\*/\*\*\}/\*_spec.rb failed

Rspec 3 is still compatible with 1.8.7, correct?

[myronmarston]

Rspec 3 is still compatible with 1.8.7, correct?

It is indeed.

The output you are seeing is coming from another test runner (either Test::Unit or minitest, I think) that is failing because it doesn't recognize RSpec's --pattern option. The solution is to track down whatever is loading the alternate test runner and stop it from doing so.

[batter]

@myronmarston - I'm pretty sure it's loaded in by ActiveSupport or something within the Rails framework (I know that minitest is a dependency for ActiveSupport 4. At any rate, I found grosser/parallel_tests#189 which seemed like the same thing on the surface, but didn't fix the issue for me, as Test::Unit::AutoRunner was not defined for me when running my spec suite.

After some more reading through the documentation for Test::Unit I found this option on the base Test::Unit class, and sure enough it did the trick:

# spec/rails_helper.rb
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'

require 'spec_helper'
require File.expand_path('../../test/dummy/config/environment', __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'

# prevent Test::Unit's AutoRunner from executing during RSpec's rake task
Test::Unit.run = true if defined?(Test::Unit) && Test::Unit.respond_to?(:run=)

[JonRowe]

You may not be using minitest directly, but something you're using is.

[batter]

@JonRowe - I was able to fix my issue on Ruby18 by adding that line to my rails_helper.rb

[knightq]

Thank you all, the

# prevent Test::Unit's AutoRunner from executing during RSpec's rake task
Test::Unit.run = true if defined?(Test::Unit) && Test::Unit.respond_to?(:run=)

saved my life (or at least it made it slightly better)

[paulwalker]

Using the same line in the Rakefile resolved the issues I had with some rake tasks as well.

[kris-luminar]

Thanks @batter your solution fixed this issue for me!