Pending Shared Example

[andyl]

I've got a collection of duck-type classes that all implement a set of methods.
I'm able to build a shared example group that describes a these methods.

shared_examples_for "a duck type" do
  it { should respond_to(:method1) }
end
describe Class1 do
  it_should_behave_like "a duck type"
end
describe Class2 do
  it_should_behave_like "a duck type"
end

In my situation, I have implemented Class1#method1, but Class2#method1 is pending.

I'd like the ability to say:

describe Class2 do
    it_should_behave_like "a duck type", :pending
end

I can apply pending to a shared example, but not to it_should_behave_like. This is sub-optimal when working with a collection of duck-types where some class implementations are complete and others are pending.

Enhancement requests:

1. enable the :pending attribute for it_should_behave_like
2. enable the :skip attribute for it_should_behave_like
3. add xit_should_behave_like

[myronmarston]

Arguments passed to it_should_behave_like have a different purpose: they get yielded to the shared example group block:

https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-core/v/3-0/docs/example-groups/shared-examples#passing-parameters-to-a-shared-example-group

It would be confusing to treat the arguments as metadata as well. You can get the behavior you want, though:

shared_examples_for "a duck type" do |*metadata|
  context "describe this group", *metadata do
    # put the specs in here.
  end
end

[myronmarston]

Alternately, if you don't want to wrap the specs in an additional context, you can support pending or skip with a before hook:

shared_examples_for "a duck type" do |*flags|
  before { pending } if flags.include?(:pending)
  # specs go here
end

[andyl]

Yes thanks very much - that will work perfectly.

[TimMoore]

If anyone else finds this issue via Google, here's another trick you can use at the call site, which doesn't require modifying the shared examples definition to take a metadata or flags argument:

it_behaves_like 'some shared example' do
  before { pending }
end

[Startouf]

I believe the issue should be reopened and one of the following should be done

• Either allow marking all examples as pending by wrapping them around pending blocks

pending('Reason for pending') do 
  it_behaves_like '...'
  context do 
     ...
  end
end

• Or enhance the RSpec core deocumentation with the trick from TimMoore Pending Shared Example #1583 (comment)

@andyl

[JonRowe]

Happy to accept a PR to improve the documentation if you'd like to attempt it, but I don't feel the api should be expanded to change this behaviour.