Docspec

Docspec lets you reuse your Markdown documents as the unit tests for your Ruby library.

$ gem install docspec

Docspec expects one or more Markdown files with embedded code snippets to test.

Code snippets should be enclosed in a ruby or shell code fence:

puts "code to test (should output something)"
#=> code to test (should output something)

This document itself serves as the test suite for this gem, so you can take a look at its source.

• Running docspec without arguments will run on ./README.md
• Running docspec with a filename, will run on that filename
• Running docspec with a directory, will run on all the markdown files in that directory.

If your bundle includes the simplecov gem, it will be automatically loaded and generate coverage report in the coverage directory.

# Running from Ruby code
document = Docspec::Document.from_file 'test/sample.md'
document.test
#=> pass : Sample Test

puts document.success?
#=> true

# Test a file using the CLI class
runner = Docspec::CLI.new 'test/sample.md'
success = runner.run
#=> file : test/sample.md
#=> pass : Sample Test
#=> 
#=> 1 tests, 0 failed

# Test multiple folders/files using the CLI class
runner = Docspec::CLI.new 'test', 'test/sample.md'
success = runner.run
#=> file : test/folder/another.md
#=> pass : Another Sample Test
#=> 
#=> file : test/sample.md
#=> pass : Sample Test
#=> 
#=> file : test/sample2.md
#=> pass : echo shell
#=> void : echo shell
#=> pass : puts "ruby"
#=> void : puts "ruby"
#=> 
#=> file : test/sample.md
#=> pass : Sample Test
#=>
#=> 7 tests, 0 failed

Code examples that you want to test, should output something to stdout. Specify the expected output by prefixing it with #=>:

# The first line is an optional label
puts 'hello world'.upcase
#=> HELLO WORLD

If an example raises an exception, the captured output will be the #inspect string of that exception:

# Exceptions are captured
puts "hello".camel_case
#=> #<NoMethodError: undefined method `camel_case' for ...

Using three dots at the beginning or end of the expected output (like in the above example) will perform a partial match:

# Ellipsis match
puts "the beginning will be ignored as well as the end"
#=> ... will be ignored ...

Your code and expected output can contain multiple lines of code:

# Multiple lines of code
string = "hello"
3.times do 
  puts string
end
#=> hello
#=> hello
#=> hello

and you can alternate between code and expected output:

# Interleaving code and output 
puts 2 + 3
#=> 5

puts 2 - 3
#=> -1

or have the expected output in the same line as its code:

puts 2 * 3    #=> 6
puts 'works'  #=> works

The first line of the example may contain specially formatted flags. Flags are always formatted like this: [:flag_name].

The [:ignore_failure] flag allows the example to fail. It will show the failure in the output, but will not elevate the exit status to a failure state:

# This example may fail [:ignore_failure]
# Due to the :ignore_failure flag, it will show the failure diff, but will
# not be considered a failure in the exit status.
puts 'hello world'.upcase
#=> hello world

Another available flag, is the [:skip] flag, which will omit the example from the test run:

# [:skip]
this will not be executed

Sometimes it is useful to build the example over several different code blocks. To help achieve this, docspec will treat any example that does not expect any output (no #=> markers) as a code that needs to be executed before all subsequent examples:

# Define functions or variables for later use
def create_caption(text)
  [text.upcase, ("=" * text.length)].join "\n"
end

message = 'tada!'

All the examples below this line, will have the above function available:

# Use a previously defined function or variable
puts create_caption message
#=> TADA!
#=> =====

Examples marked with a shell code fence will be executed by the shell, and not by ruby:

# Shell commands
echo hello world
#=> hello world

and they also support chaining of examples:

# Prepend shell example to all subsequent shell examples
# (since this example does not define an expected output)
SOME_ENV_VAR=yes

echo $SOME_ENV_VAR
#=> yes