How do I prepare test database(s) for Rails rspec tests without running rake spec?

Question

After significant troubleshooting, I figured out that I needed to run rake spec once (I can abort with control-c) before I can run rspec directly (e.g. on a sub

Answer 1

In a spring-ified Rails 4 app, my bin/setup is usually augmented to contain

puts "\n== Preparing test database =="
system "RAILS_ENV=test bin/rake db:setup"

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This is very similar to leviathan's answer, plus seeding the test DB, as

rake db:setup # Create the database, load the schema, and initialize with the seed data
(use db:reset to also drop the database first)

As the comment mentions, if we want to drop the DB first, rake db:reset does just that.

I also find that this provides more feedback when compared to rake db:test:prepare.