run-tests-with-documentation-formatting.md

Run Tests With Documentation Formatting

Typically when you invoke rspec on a file or an entire suite of tests, you'll see a bunch of dots (.) and maybe a couple Fs.

$ rspec spec/models/user_spec.rb

.F...........

That style of output is called progress formatting.

That's not the only option for formatting output from RSpec. Another one is documentation formatting.

Use the --format flag to specify a format like documentation. Or -f d works as a shorthand.

$ rspec --format documentation spec/models/user_spec.rb

User
  #valid?
    without required fields
      returns false
    with invalid email
      returns false (FAILED - 1)
    with invalid password
      too short
        returns false
      no upper case letter
        returns false

The resulting test output is a readable format that leverages the describe, context, and it descriptions that we craft for each test.

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