how do I extend LOAD_PATH for MiniTest?

Question

[Aside: I am slowly answering my own question in "a concise recipe for installing, configuring and running minitest under autotest or Guard"]

My environment: Ruby 2.0. Padrino 0.10.7. Minitest 2.6.2. RackTest 0.6.2.

Short form: What is the best way to extend $LOAD_PATH to include my test directory so I can simply require 'test_helper' in my test files?

Long form:

Here's a sample test file. Note the require_relative "../../../test_helper" -- this requires keeping track of the test file relative to the test_helper.

# file: test/models/api/v0/index_test.rb
require_relative '../../../test_helper'

describe 'nobody home' do
  it 'fetch fails' do
    get "/api/v0/a_uri_that_does_not_exist"
    last_response.status.must_equal 404
  end
end

Here's the test helper:

# file: test/test_helper.rb
PADRINO_ENV = 'test' unless defined?(PADRINO_ENV)
require File.expand_path('../../config/boot', __FILE__)

class MiniTest::Unit::TestCase
  include Rack::Test::Methods

  def app
    Demo.tap { |app|  }
  end
end

And finally, the rakefile that drives it (generated by padrino, invoked via padrino rake test):

# file: test/test.rake
require 'rake/testtask'

test_tasks = Dir['test/*/'].map { |d| File.basename(d) }
$stderr.puts("=== test_tasks = #{test_tasks}")

test_tasks.each do |folder|
  Rake::TestTask.new("test:#{folder}") do |test|
    test.pattern = "test/#{folder}/**/*_test.rb"
    test.verbose = true
  end
end

desc "Run application test suite"
task 'test' => test_tasks.map { |f| "test:#{f}" }

So: what would it take to replace the brittle require_relative '../../../test_helper' with a dependable and easily remembered require 'test_helper'?

Answer 1

you need to add libs:

Rake::TestTask.new("test:#{folder}") do |test|
  test.pattern = "test/#{folder}/**/*_test.rb"
  test.verbose = true
  test.libs << 'test' # <-- this
end

Or if you invoke directly it with ruby:

$ ruby -Itest test/test_file.rb