Error when trying to run rspec: `require': cannot load such file — rails_helper (LoadError)

Question

I am trying to run rspec for Ruby on Rails. I am running Rails 4.1.1. I have installed the gem, have established a spec folder with some tests. I have created a directory

Answer 1

Please install the following gem:

gem install 'rspec-rails'

And then run: rails generate rspec:install

This will generate the spec folder and rails_helper.rb and spec_helper.rb. Your error should be taken care once this is done.

Answer 2

For newer versions (3.5), if you need to run the generator, rails generate rspec:install doesn't work for me. I used:

rspec --init

Creates .rspec and spec/spec_helper.rb.

EDIT: Just in case, I found out that I installed rspec gem for ruby, not the one for Rails, so rspec:install wasn't available. Should use https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails.

Answer 3

For someone. If you got that error when you trynna test a specific file. you might can like this

$ bundle exec rspec ./spec/features/user_login_spec.rb
$ bundle exec rspec ./spec/models/user_login_spec.rb

Answer 4

One possibility that worked for me is to make sure you're requiring spec_helper. RubyMine can default require rspec and this can sometimes lead to this error.

Answer 5

Always remember to run the rspec or the bundle exec rspec from the root of your project. Something like:

bundle exec rspec spec/features/file_test_spec.rb

Answer 6

I actually just had this error on rails 4 with rspec 3, but in my case I forgot to run the generator:

rails generate rspec:install

Also I had to remove warnings from .rspec, as stated by one of rpsec developers