rspec-rails: Rails 5: uninitialized constant ActionView::Template::Handlers::ERB::ENCODING_FLAG

I have the rails_helper.rb and the spec_helper.rb generated by the scaffolder. I have an empty controller test

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe HomeController, type: :controller do
end

When I run either bundle exec rails spec or bundle exec rspec spec/controllers/home_controller_spec.rb I get

/home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:90:in `<class:ERB>': uninitialized constant ActionView::Template::Handlers::ERB::ENCODING_FLAG (NameError)
Did you mean?  Encoding
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:76:in `<module:Handlers>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:5:in `<class:Template>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:4:in `<module:ActionView>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers.rb:12:in `require'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/handlers.rb:12:in `extended'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template.rb:111:in `extend'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template.rb:111:in `<class:Template>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template.rb:7:in `<module:ActionView>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template.rb:5:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/resolver.rb:4:in `require'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/template/resolver.rb:4:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/testing/resolvers.rb:1:in `require'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@global/gems/actionview-5.0.0/lib/action_view/testing/resolvers.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-rails-3.5.1/lib/rspec/rails/view_rendering.rb:1:in `require'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-rails-3.5.1/lib/rspec/rails/view_rendering.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-rails-3.5.1/lib/rspec/rails.rb:9:in `require'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-rails-3.5.1/lib/rspec/rails.rb:9:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/my_app/my_app-web/spec/rails_helper.rb:2:in `require'
    from /home/me/my_app/my_app-web/spec/rails_helper.rb:2:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/my_app/my_app-web/spec/controllers/home_controller_spec.rb:1:in `require'
    from /home/me/my_app/my_app-web/spec/controllers/home_controller_spec.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:1435:in `load'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:1435:in `block in load_spec_files'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:1433:in `each'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/configuration.rb:1433:in `load_spec_files'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:100:in `setup'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:86:in `run'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:71:in `run'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/lib/rspec/core/runner.rb:45:in `invoke'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/gems/rspec-core-3.5.2/exe/rspec:4:in `<top (required)>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/bin/rspec:23:in `load'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/bin/rspec:23:in `<main>'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `eval'
    from /home/me/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.1@my_app/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `<main>'

The workaround is to add require "rails/all" at the beginning of rails_helper.rb or of spec_helper.rb but that wasn’t needed for Rails 4 and rspec-rails 3.1.

Did I miss something in the documentation?

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 8 years ago
Comments: 29 (10 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Add additional rescue blocks to gem_loader Trying to run `srb rbi gems` would crash due to some missing requires of some gems that are broken. ex. https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails/issues/1690 A... — committed to fzakaria/sorbet by fzakaria 5 years ago
Add additional rescue blocks to gem_loader (#2260) * Add additional rescue blocks to gem_loader Trying to run `srb rbi gems` would crash due to some missing requires of some gems that are broken.... — committed to sorbet/sorbet by fzakaria 5 years ago
Fix the tracer to work with JRuby (#2266) * Add additional rescue blocks to gem_loader Trying to run `srb rbi gems` would crash due to some missing requires of some gems that are broken. ex. h... — committed to sorbet/sorbet by fzakaria 5 years ago

Most upvoted comments

I got the same issue, but after I adding require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__) to my spec_help.rb, and it works.

+13

terratakashi on Feb 15, 2017

see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4429068/getting-an-unitialized-constant-error-with-rspec-have-no-idea-whats-causing-it

I got around this by adding to my spec_helper.rb file

require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)

+11

jasonfb on Mar 29, 2017

I came across this problem as well when creating a new Rails 5.1.1. app, with Rspec, Capybara and Factory Girl. Things worked once I placed expand_path at the top of the file.

My setup looks like:

require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rails/all'
require 'capybara/rails'
require 'factory_girl_rails'

LauraKirby on Jun 2, 2017

Interesting! Thanks for the heads-up, @johnpitchko

pirj on Jul 22, 2021

I fixed this (on a fresh Rails 5 app, haven’t even added test yet) by changing the .rspec file from

--require spec_helper

--require rails_helper

Does this seem ok to ppl?

aubsw on Jun 27, 2017

Be aware that adding require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__) causes rails to be booted essentially so should only be added to files where thats expected to be the case (which is not normally needed for plain old ruby specs).

JonRowe on Jun 5, 2017