How to Change Environment Variables When Running Rspec for Ruby

Trying to change environment variable within RSpec model spec

Try it

module TopDogCore::Concerns::UserValidations
  extend ActiveSupport::Concern
  included do

    validates :username,
      presence: true,
      uniqueness: true, if: -> { ENV['APP_FOR'] == 'app-1' }

    validates :email,
      presence: true,
      uniqueness: true, if: -> { ENV['APP_FOR'] == 'app-2' }
  end
end

RSpec - Best Way to Set Env Variable

Env vars aren't really supposed to be changed at runtime. So, calling ENV['IS_OFF'] = "NO" in your tests isn't really a good idea. The problem is, env vars are a global configuration, so if you change it from one test, the value will still be changed when you run the other test.

The easiest way to do this is probably stub_const, which will temporarily change the value of the constant, e.g. stub_const "Cryption::Crypt", "OFF_ENCRYPT", "false". This is the best option, imo.

But for the sake of completeness, I can show you a way to actually change the environment variable from a specific test. First you would need to change the constant to a method, e.g. def off_encrypt; ENV["OFF_ENCRYPT"]; end. Either that or change the encrypt/decrypt methods to just read the env var directly, e.g. not from a constant.

Then, in your tests, you could do something like this:

around(:each) do |example|
  orig_value = ENV["OFF_ENCRYPT"]
  ENV["OFF_ENCRYPT"] = "true" # set the new value
  example.run
ensure
  ENV["OFF_ENCRYPT"] = orig_value
end

Again, I wouldn't really recommend this, but it is possible.

How to load environment variables to ruby app spec using Rspec and .env

In your test helper file, you can add:

require 'dotenv'
Dotenv.load('.env.test.local')

This is on the dotenv readme

How do I get an ENV variable set for rspec?

You can use the dotenv gem --- it'll work the same as foreman and load from a .env file. (and a .env.test file for your test environments)

https://github.com/bkeepers/dotenv

What is the best way to write specs for code that depends on environment variables?

That would work.

Another way would be to put a layer of indirection between your code and the environment variables, like some sort of configuration object that's easy to mock.

How to set different environment variables for test and development when using Foreman

The .env file will be used by default, but you can make a second file like .env2 and use it with foreman start --env .env2.

If you are using the dotenv-rails gem to load environment variables, .env.test.local will be automatically loaded for just the test environment.

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